Viewing entries by
Kate Turner
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Golsana Haghdousti from the Tuschl Lab has been working with the Access and Widening team at UCL and has designed a 6-week course for Y12 students as part of UCL expand project. This page explains her topic: Fin-tastic Creatures - Exploring the Uses of Zebrafish in Human Research.
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We had 10 fantastic students visit the Fish Floor for a week to learn about our research and the life of a scientist first hand. In addition to gaining insight into the theory behind our research and experimental methodologies, the students got to perform their own experiments. Over the course of the week they learned classic molecular biology methods, immunohistochemistry, RNA in situ hybridisation and confocal microscopy. They also had the chance to see our cutting-edge behaviour assays used in our research into sleep and visual hunting behaviours and talk to the experts about their application.
Despite the novelty and complexity of the theoretical concepts we covered, the students’ presentations at the end of their placement demonstrated their ability to not only understand these concepts but also to place their own findings into the greater context of our research questions. We always love hearing these presentations and find them very inspiring.
A key part of the Zebrafish Academy is our mentorship programme. Each student is paired with a researcher. This gives them the chance to engage one-to-one with a scientist, to discuss their career aspirations and get targetted advice on their future academic path.
We received excellent feedback from this years cohort. We wish them every success in their future studies.
A big thank you to all of the Fish Floor Researchers whose time and expertise make this placement possible. We love inspiring the scientists of the future and sharing our love of all things zebrafish!
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The lab welcomes three new UCL Masters Students for 2024/2025.
Nikol will work with Gina to explore new genes regulating Muller glial tiling and neuronal contacts in the zebrafish retina.
Anson will work with Ola to study retina development and Muller glia regenerative potential in the killifish.
Isabella will work with Nicole to study sex-specific differences in retina degeneration phenotypes in killifish.
Look forward to see what they discover!
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The most impactful thing we can do is train and support people to progress their careers, and ultimate reach their career goals. Three former members of the lab have gone on to further their academic careers.
Dr. Manuela Lahne was a postdoc in the lab from 2022-2023. She will start this fall as a tenure-track Lecturer at Queen Mary University in the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences.
Dr. Natalia Jaroszynska was the first PhD student in the MacDonald lab at UCL. She has completed her degree and now moved on as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Caroline Hill at the Crick Institute.
Ms. Aanandita Kothurkar joined as a Research technician after her MSc at UCL in 2022-2024. She has now started her PhD as part of the prestigious BBSRC WhiteRose PhD Programme at the University of Sheffield in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew Lin.
We're proud to have played a small part in their careers and can't wait to see all that they accomplish!
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The Tuschl Lab at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH), University College London are looking for an experienced Research Assistant to focus on a grant to determine whether mRNA therapy can rescue a rare disorder of childhood characterised by manganese overload in the brain causing a disabling movement disorder. This proof-of-concept study will utilise cell and mouse models that mirror the human phenotype. For more information on the role please contact Dr Karin Tuschl (k.tuschl@ucl.ac.uk; http://zebrafishucl.org/tuschl)
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The Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Award is given for outstanding achievements in genetics research using zebrafish as a model system. It is fantastic to have Steve’s career-long contributions to the Zebrafish community and his research achievements recognised. Steve presented the award lecture at the International Zebrafish Society conference in Kyoto. You can read more about the award here.
Photos courtesy of Emre Yaksi and the European Zebrafish Society
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and stops to feed the fish!
Baroness Gillian Merron, the Health Minister responsible for life sciences and innovation, toured some of UCL’s life sciences facilities including the UCL Zebrafish Facility and the Fish Floor Labs to see first-hand how our research is helping to tackle some of the world’s biggest health challenges.
Read more about the visit here.
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It's that time of year again and we are lucky to welcome three students to the laboratory for the summer. We have Kristen, 2nd year UCL undergrad, that will be joining Xhuljana to work on glial development projects. Joshua, Cambridge undergrad, who received a bursary from Churchill College Camrbidge to work with Nicole on a Killifish retinal ageing project. Matias, PhD student with Leo Valdivia in Chile, who will join us on a EMBO short-term fellowship to look at new genes involved in Muller glia development.
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Moorfields Eye Charity is the leading charity in the UK funding research into eye health and innovation and improvement in patient care to help patients at Moorfields and globally. The MacDonald lab in incredibly grateful for the support from the charity, which includes PhD studentships and Springboard awards, allowing them to expediate their exploration into glial mechanisms of health and disease. Importantly, the charity has also funded several equipment grants to build a dedicated aquatics suite in the Institute of Ophthalmology. Initially this was just zebrafish in 2019, however in 2024 the unit was expanded to house the emerging ageing model, Killifish. This gives the MacDonald lab, and several other research groups (Moosajee, Young, Futter), access to state of the art facilties to house their animals and conduct world leading eye research.
https://moorfieldseyecharity.org.uk/downloads/Impact-report-2024-final-low-res.pdf
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Dr. Nicole Noel has been awarded the prestigious CIHR Banting Postdoctoral fellowship to continue her project on modelling age-related macular degeneration in the emerging rapidly ageing model the killifish. Nicole joined the lab in 2022 on a BrightFocus postdoctoral fellowship and has made several exciting discoveries around the molecular mechanisms underpinning age-related degenerations, including those that are similar to what happens in human disease. Some of these findings were published earlier in 2024 with Nicole as co-first author (https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.14192). We can't wait to see what Nicole finds in the news few years!
https://banting.fellowships-bourses.gc.ca/en/2023-2024-eng.html
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We're excited that an image from our PhD student Natalia Jaroszynska was awarded the cover of the upcoming issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Natalia is first author on a paper characterising c9orf72 mutant zebrafish in a collaboration between the MacDonald and Keatinge labs (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/44/25/e2128232024.long). This paper identifies potential retinal degeneration phenotypes in the eye that may be relevant for patients with motor neuron disease.
Also cited here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioo/news/2024/jun/confocal-image-one-our-labs-cover-journal-neuroscience
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Rorscharch Test by Ana Faro
The new Wilson Lab paper in Science provides new insights into the development of brain asymmetry and the Wnt signalling pathway.
You can read the paper (don’t forget to check out the supplementary material too!) or for an easy intro to this exciting story read the lay summary on the UCL website.
Thanks and congratulations to all authors on this very collaborative study!
Links:
Press release: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/news/2024/may/left-side-story-new-insights-genetics-brain-asymmetry
Open Access paper at UCL Discovery: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10191627/
Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade6970
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New Nature paper from the Rihel Lab based on the PhD work of Anya Suppermpool
Synaptic Nightlife by Anya Suppermpool
During sleep, the brain weakens the new connections between neurons that had been forged while awake – but only during the first half of a night’s sleep, according to a new study in fish by UCL scientists.
Read more about this exciting study in this UCL press release.
or read the whole study at Nature!
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New study from the Tuschl Lab: Our manuscript on manganese neurotoxicity in wild-type zebrafish is out – affecting morphology, neurogranin expression and locomotor behaviour! Collaboration between UCL and Dr Monica Folgueira’s group at University of A Coruña, Spain. From Anabel’s work during her lab visit in spring 2022. https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/25/9/4933
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The L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science partnership aims to help empower more women scientists to achieve scientific excellence and participate equally in solving the great challenges facing humanity.
Mie Wong has been highly commended for the For Women In Science Rising Talent Life Sciences Award. Congratulations, Mie!
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Gina is a BBSRC LiDO student and Marybelle is a UCL Excellence Scholar. If you would like to read more about thier projects and interests click on the images below.
Marybelle Cameron-Pack
Gina Gilpin
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Golsana Haghdousti is the first student in the Tuschl lab to successfully pass her upgrade from MPhil to PhD – massive congratulations!!!
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This year the lab celebrated 2023 with Christmas lunch at an Italian restaurant before heading off to axe throwing. Everyone had a great time and managed to leave with all of their fingers.
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Ryan turned 40 this year. So the lab bought him very useful tools for his old age. Manuela also made him his favourite type of cake - a Muller glia cake.
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