Magdalini Polymenidou

Magdalini Polymenidou is Associate Professor of Biomedicine at the Department of Quantitative Biomedicine of the University of Zurich (UZH). She is an expert on protein aggregation, prions and prion-like phenomena, as well as RNA-binding proteins. She joined UZH as an Assistant Professor in 2013 and her research team studies the molecular mechanisms of ALS and FTD with focus on the formation and properties of the physiological and pathological states of TDP-43 and FUS. Her team combines structural and biochemical analyses with cellular assays and animal models to identify new therapeutic targets from ALS and FTD. Originally trained as a pharmacist in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), she did her PhD on prion diseases in the laboratory of Adriano Aguzzi at the University Hospital of Zurich (Switzerland). As a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Don Cleveland at the University of California in San Diego (USA), she used genome-wide approaches to understand the function of TDP-43 and FUS. Among other honors, she was elected an EMBO member (2025), received the Milken & Tambourine ALS Breakthrough Research Fund (2024), the ERC Consolidator Grant (2022), the NIBR Global Scholars Award (2022), the Franco Regli Prize (2019), the EMBO Young Investigator Award (2018), the Georg-Friedrich Götz Prize (2015), the SNSF Professorship (2013), the HFSP Career Development Award (2013) and the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2011).