Congratulations to Lecturer in Neuroscience Dr David Menassa who is one of 20 international experts in the field of microglia biology. David has been invited to speak about human microglial development by the Nobel Assembly and the organising committee at their Frontiers in Medicine workshop on microglia in May 2026.
David’s research focuses on human microglial dynamics in neurodevelopmental and paediatric disease integrating immunology, neuroanatomy, high-throughput methods and AI-driven tools for detection and spatial analyses. Over the past decade, David’s key contributions to the microglial field have included the mapping of the spatiotemporal dynamics of microglia in humans and other species and the development of AI-driven tools to map microglial organisation in tissues in health, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.
Microglia, resident immune cells of the central nervous system, play essential roles in human neural development but they are not well understood during development in humans. David has co-developed a novel AI tool which studies cellular interactions in human brain tissues in an automated way. This has revealed the shape diversity of microglia during normal human brain development and identified how microglia cluster as they colonise the brain.
The tool can also be adapted to be deployed on human tissues to elucidate cellular organisation in pathological conditions, such as neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This can help scientists develop targeted hypotheses to unravel detailed mechanisms and develop treatments aimed at targeting inflammation in the brain.
David said:
I am delighted to be invited to speak at the Nobel forum in May 2026. This forum involves distinguished speakers in the microglia field where I will be sharing my expertise in human microglial development, the relevance of these cells to neuro-developmental disorders and to discuss novel approaches/tools we have been developing to study these exciting cells.
The invitation comes hot on the heels of a funding award by The British Council in France, Germany, and Spain who have jointly launched the Springboard Programme to support and expand new or existing scientific collaborations between laboratories in the UK and those countries, with a particular focus on early career researchers. You can read more about this award in an interview with David.
