Members

Christophe Leterrier, team leader (CR CNRS, HDR)

Christophe was trained as an engineer in physics and chemistry, and later received his PhD in Neuroscience from the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He came to Marseille as a post-doc in 2006 and became a tenured CNRS researcher in 2011. He’s leading the NeuroCyto team since 2017, using advanced microscopy to decipher the structure and functions of the neuronal cytoskeleton. You can check Christophe’s Google Scholar page here and NCBI bibliography here, and find him on LinkedIn or Bluesky.

Marie-Jeanne Papandréou, associate professor (MCU AMU, HDR)

Marie-Jeanne is an Associate Professor at Aix-Marseille University since 1991. She is teaching classes in Biochemistry and Immunology at the Marseille Saint-Charles Faculty, and at the ESIL engineering school. She also teaches in the Immunology and Neurosciences Masters. After studying the role of glycans in the HIV envelope functions (1994-2009) and characterizing new proteins at the axon initial segment (2010-2016),  she brings her knowledge of  cell biology and biochemistry to the NeuroCyto team projects.

Pascal Verdier-Pinard, senior researcher (CR INSERM)

Pascal has been an INSERM researcher since 2006. He has worked on cytoskeleton pharmacology and biochemistry, then on the roles of microtubules in the migration of cancer cells. Since 2017, his work focuses on the interplay between actin and microtubules mediated by septins. He has joined the team in 2024 and will help drive projects on microtubules and neuronal models from induced pluripotent stem cells.

Nicolas Jullien, research engineer (IR CNRS)

Nicolas is a CNRS research engineer who joined us  in June 2021. Gifted molecular biologist,  he’s the NeuroCyto secret weapon for taking advantage of the newest probes and genetic manipulations strategies. 

Fanny Boroni-Rueda, technician (AMU)

Fanny is an Aix-Marseille University technician that is with us since September 2017. Fanny provides helps all NeuroCyto team members, and has a steady hand in the preparation, organization and teaching of neuronal cultures.

Florence Pelletier, assistant engineer (AMU)

Florence is an Aix-Marseille University technician who joined the team in May 2021. Part lab manager, part sample prep wizardess, aways with a sharp eye and attention to detail.

Theresa Wiesner, postdoc

After a PhD in the Intelligent Nanoscopy group of Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal and the Paul De Koninck lab in Québec City, Theresa joined us in September 2022 as the first postdoc of the NeuroCyto lab with funding from the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR). She’s tackling an ambitious project, developing ways of monitoring exocytosis and neuronal activity and linking it to the nanoscale organization of neurons.

Christopher Parperis, postdoc

Christopher did his PhD in Mark Wallace’s lab in London. He started his postdoc in the team in June 2023, funded by ANR. He’s working to refine our multicolor SMLM capabilities and make the most of our new Abbelight module, as well as collaborate with the biological projects of the team.

Harrison York, postdoc

After completing his PhD in Senthil Arumugam‘s lab at Monash University in Melbourne, Harrison started his postdoc in February 2025 in the NeuroCyto lab, funded by ANR. His project aims at deciphering the physiological regulation and roles of microtubule turnover in neurons.

 Ciarán Butler-Hallisey, PhD student

Ciarán is from Ireland, and did his Master’s in Turku, Finland before working as a research engineer on the Turku CIC imaging facility for a couple of years. He started his PhD in the team in December 2021 after obtaining funding from the NeuroSchool PhD program, exploring the role of microtubule turnover in neurons.

Louis Romette, PhD student

Louis recently graduated from the SUp’Biotech engineering School in Paris, before working at the Neuron Experts company in Marseille for a year. He joined the lab as a PhD student in October 2024 thanks to CNRS MITI funding, in partnership with Emmanuel Soubies at IRIT in Toulouse. Louis’ PhD aims at visualizing the nanoscale dynamics of the neuronal cytoskeleton thanks to Structured Illumination Microscopy, including new algorithms compatible with low-light illumination.

Alumni

September 2023 – Dec 2024: Louisa Mezache, Postdoc.
Louisa got her PhD in the Nanocardiology lab of Rengasayee Veeraraghavan at Ohio State University. She started her postdoc with us in September 2023, thanks to funding from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (FRM). She focused visualizing the presynaptic actin nanostructures together with synaptic vesicle exocytosis by correlative approaches. (Tumminia, Mezache et al., bioRxiv 2024).

October 2021 – Dec 2024: Sofia Tumminia, PhD student.
Sofia came from Italy to study biology in Marseille, and has worked during her PhD thanks to FRM funding on resolving the architecture and role of actin in synapses thanks to new synapse induction strategies using micropatterned strategies. (Tumminia, Mezache et al., bioRxiv 2024). She defended her PhD in December 2024.

October 2019 – Feb 2024: Florian Wernert, PhD student (Doctoral School).
An IT engineer by training, Florian had a career in software engineering and IT security before diving into neuroscience. His PhD aimed at understanding the functional ultrastructure of clathrin-coated pits and endocytosis along the proximal axon (Wernert, Moparthi et al., Science 2024).

October 2018 – July 2022: Dominic Bingham, PhD student.
After a Master’s at University of Sheffield, Dominic joined the lab in October 2018 as our first PhD student thanks to NeuroSchool funding. He started the work on deciphering the organization and role of actin along axons and at synapses (Bingham et al., JCB 2023). After obtaining a NeuroSchool grant for 4th year funding, he defended his PhD in July 2022.

March 2019 – February 2023: Karoline Friedl, PhD student
After a Master’s at University of Frankfurt, Karoline wanted work on super-resolution microscopy and helped start our partnership with the Abbelight company via a CIFRE PhD fellowship. She developed and characterized fast multicolor SMLM modalities on the Abbelight module (Friedl et al., Cell Rep Methods 2023) and defended her PhD in February 2023 and is now working at Abbelight.

October 2017- September 2019: Angélique Jimenez, assistant engineer (ATIP). After working at the INP Stem Cell NeuroTimone (SCeNT) facility, she’s now working in biotech companies.

January 2017 – September 2020: Ghislaine Caillol, technician (AMU). A founding member of the NeuroCyto Lab, Ghislaine retired in September 2020 and we miss her!

Students and visitors

We’re always happy to hire students or trainees at all levels and host visitors – if you’re interested in an internship, want to discuss possibilities of a PhD or a stay in our lab, please contact us.

  • May-July 2024: Yuhao Han, visiting PhD student from the lab of Marina Mikhaylova, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
  • March-June 2024: Céline Gomis, Biotechnology BUT student from Clermont-Ferrand University.
  • December 2023-June 2024: Eline Simons, Master Student from Hasselt University (Belgium).
  • March-August 2023: Antoine Delamare, Master 2 ImaCell (Master in Cell imaging, Rouen).
  • September 2022-April 2023: Channa Jakobs, Master Student from Radboud University (Netherlands)
  • July-October 2022: Eva Schentarra, Master Student from the University of Heidelberg (Germany).
  • February-March 2022: Kevin Guenard, Master 1 Cergy-Paris Université.
  • May-July 2021: Cécile Marty, engineer student from Polytech Marseille.
  • January-July 2021: Sofia Tumminia, Master 2 Neuro AmU (Master Neurosciences, Marseille).
  • July 2018-January 2019: Florian Wernert, Master 2 Neuro AmU (Master Neurosciences, Marseille).
  • April-May 2018, September 2018-January 2019: Solène Gibaud, Master 1 and Master 2 Neuro AmU (Master Neurosciences, Marseille).
  • Feb 2018-July 2018: Nikki Van Bommel, Master Student from University of Amsterdam (UvA), A*MIDEX Master fellowship.
  • Dec 2017-March 2018: Meriem Sid, Master 2 Neuro AMU (Master Neurosciences, Marseille).
  • Feb-August 2017: Sofia Yousfi, Master 2 ImaCell (Master in Cell imaging, Rouen).
  • Feb-June 2017: Julie Da Costa, Bachelor’s degree BAE (license professionnelle Biologie Analytique et Expérimentale, Montpellier).
  • March-June 2017: Angélique Jimenez, Master 2 Neuro AMU (Master Neurosciences, Marseille).