News

The third Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Zebrafish Neurobiology meeting took place in New York from 15-18 November, 2023. Several Zenith PIs and students participated. A huge shout-out to our fantastic students Giulia Zuccarini, for giving a talk in front of an excited expert audience, and Tahnee Mackensen and Elena Putti for their busy poster presentations!

Our Zenith student Elena Putti preented her work at the 1st French Zebrafish Meeting that took place in Montpellier, France from 18-20 October 2023.

With our fantastic Zenith PIs Filippo Del Bene and Claire Wyart in the organising committee, the meeting promotes collaboration amongst scientists using zebrafish and other fish species as models, and aims to stimulate knowledge exchanges and visibility on all fish projects.

Our Zenith student Alizée Kastler won the best poster prize at the «Neurobiology of Social Behaviors» conference in Erice, Sicily, Italy, that took place from 9-14 September 2023.

This workshop is part of a European initiative where labs working on social behavior meet online and discuss data, and they finally got to meet in person in a memorable meeting! The workshop focused on understanding the evolution, organization and regulatory mechanisms of social behaviors in different animal species. Plenty of refreshing ideas and great science!

Well done Alizée and well done Zebrafish!

Our Zenith student Phil, recently presented at the 16th European Meeting on Glial Cells in Health and Disease in Berlin, Germany. Phil presented at the session Special Trainee symposium his fantastic talk "Metabotropic glutamate receptors sense neuronal signals and mediate activity-driven myelination in zebrafish". Well done!

The Zenith Hackathon and final Symposium Meeting took place between 12-16 June 2023 at the Paris Brain Institute and the Sorbonne University in Paris.

For 2,5 days the Zenith students went through intense problem solving with an Hackathon led by our PI Moritz Grosse-Wentrup and fantastic teaching assistants (TAs). Then during the final Symposium Meeting, a group of almost 100 people had the opportunity to hear about the work and vision of a selected number of renowned guest scientists in the field, and to meet our 15 ESRs who presented their body of work accomplished so far. The Symposium really promoted idea exchange and collaboration!

It was an inspiring and intense week! We thank all "Zenithers", invited speakers, TAs and guests for the fantastic spirit! We are very proud of the community we've created with Zenith. More info in our Training section and check some images in our Twitter and Instagram accounts!

Last May, our amazing ESR Alizée Kastler participated once again at the Pint of Science UK events

End to 3 days of pint of science events !! I volunteered again this year and loved every aspect of it ! We invited UCL researchers to the pub to talk about mindfulness, gene therapy and personality. Lot’s of quizzes, prizes and discussions. We even had an occupational therapist lead the audience into a mindfulness exercise. So happy to see it come together so well.

-Alizée

Our Zenith student Tahnee Mackensen is recruiting an intern to work in the field of zebrafish neuroscience!

Project Title: Understanding the link between splicing and sleep/wake behaviour in zebrafish.

A trainee position is offered in the lab of Manuel Irimia at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, Spain. It’s a non-funded, full-time position for 3-8 months, to work in the field of zebrafish neuroscience with a Zenith PhD student.

The work uses a variety of approaches to investigate zebrafish behavioural states in a splicing mutants including pharmacological assay, video-tracking and widely used molecular techniques such as PCRs and Western Blotting. The ideal candidate should have:

• • Basic background in life sciences, preferably biomedicine, biology, neurobiology
• • One full year of undergraduate (2 semesters) completed by the time the internship starts
• • High level of English
• • Ideally previous lab experience (not a requirement)
• • Ability to work independently following a period of elaborative training
• • Ability to generate reliable data with the potential for publication
• • Collaborative spirit and friendly attitude, eager to learn in a fast paced environment

The ideal time to start the internship is flexible but preferably around September 2023 or January 2024.

Applications should be addressed to tahnee.mackensen@crg.eu and include CV, motivational letter, one contact for a reference letter (if needed) and university transcript.

Our Zenith student Thomas Mullen just completed in October-November 2022 a short Secondment at the Ruben Portugues lab at the Technical University Munich (TUM)!

Last month I worked in the Portugues Lab where I applied image analysis techniques such as registration and network analysis methods on my experimental data. I had a fantastic time working alongside my Zenith peer Shuhong. We also participated at the NeuroTechMUC Hackathon in Munich, using OpenBCI EEG equipment to decode human motor output.

-Tom

Last week (26/10/22) I gave an introduction to Behaviour: What is Behaviour, How is it studied and How and Why in Zebrafish?

Eight A-Level Biology students were hosted on a 5-day work experience placement in the fish floor at UCL. Throughout the week they learned In situ Hybridisation, genotyping through PCR, and recorded some behaviour. In the Dreosti lab they were able to record and compare different aspects of social behaviour: shoaling and social preference at different developmental timepoints.

A rewarding experience that hopefully gave them a good overview of what science research looks like! We had lots of positive feedback and very creative end of the week presentations from the students.

-Alizée

Our Zenith student Sharbat participated in the "Fête de la science", an event all over France where thousands of scientifics gather to share their enthusiasm for science, technology and innovation with the public. Sharbat was part of the Fish Team of the Laboratoire Jean Perrin at the Sorbonne University and he talked about the similarities and differences between human and Zebrafish brain structure.

Explaining science to the people will always, always, be amazing and fruitful.

Vive les sciences, vive la vulgarisation scientifique !

-Sharbat