Annette Tennstaedt

- Advice on research prioritization and scientific positioning - Offering strategic scientific guidance on neuromuscular disease mechanisms and mitochondrial biology

- Defined scientific strategy with KOLs to establish clinically relevant IND-enabling assays - Led key CRO partnerships to ensure high-quality, timely preclinical data - Drove cross-functional collaborations and strategic funding efforts to advance programs

Lead the Discovery Platform and in vitro Biology teams focusing on developing therapies for neurological and neuromuscular indications: - Initiate and oversee cross-functional projects to develop new therapies based on the science of plasma - Lead a high-performing team, overseeing cellular model development, target validation, and MOA studies - Setting strategic goals to ensure successful development of a drug discovery pipeline

CohBar, Inc. is an innovative biotechnology company whose mission is to treat major diseases and extend healthy life spans through the discovery of novel Mitochondrial-Derived Peptides ("MDPs") and the advancement of their development into clinically relevant and commercially successful therapeutics.

My project focused on stem cell-based therapy in stroke-damaged mouse brains. For this purpose I development the first fate mapping platform to monitor neuronal differentiation in vitro and in vivo. I designed complex DNA constructs to control the expression of imaging reporters by neuron specific promoters. Subsequently I have transduced human and mouse neural stem cells and established successfully a screening assay to find drugs to optimize their differentiation behavior to neurons or astrocytes in vitro. I achieved the major goal by intracerebral grafting of the transgenic stem cells and monitoring their differentiation behavior to major neurons in real-time in vivo in naïve and stroke-damaged mouse brains. This project included a broad portfolio of cell culture, virology, molecular and biochemical techniques and furthermore applying imaging tools such as bioluminescence and fluorescence imaging and also MRI.

The project focused on various aspects of Alzheimer’s disease, in particular I was interested in protein degeneration and co-localization studies in neuronal cells. This enabled me to get a deep knowledge in different techniques such as protein biochemistry, enzymology, molecular, cell biology and microscopy, e.g. protein purification, enzyme kinetics and activity assays, cloning and transduction of shRNA constructs in neuronal cells and confocal laser scanning microscopy with live cells and fixed neural cells. Furthermore, I have successfully established a high-throughput screening assay to find activators and inhibitors for our targeting protease.

PhD thesis: The protective role of the widely conserved serine-protease HtrA1 in Alzheimer’s disease

Diploma thesis: In vivo and in vitro studies of the expression pattern and toxicity of prion-related genes