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My first love (scientifically speaking): honeybees
The Beginning
"Can ants laugh?" was one important question my 4-year old self asked my older brother. He loves to remind me that I could not stop asking questions, especially about animals. By now, I ask them for a living as a neuroscientist. After my Bachelor studies, I quickly turned my interest towards insects, more specifically, I started to work in insect neuroscience. During my Masters in the labs of Keram Pfeiffer and Uwe Homberg at the Philipps-University Marburg, I worked on the visual system of honeybees . I investigated the anatomical basis of their astonishing orientation skills. I stuck with that topic and Keram's lab as a PhD student, but I was eager to dive deeper into the physiology of the bee brain. Therefore, I set out to perform calcium imaging in the brain of tethered honeybees while presenting visual stimuli to them. A 10-month stay at Janelia Research Campus in the lab of Vivek Jayaraman pushed my project further by adding a behavioral component. I ended up performing calcium imaging in behaving honeybees while showing different patterns in a visual arena. After returning to Germany, the lab moved to the University of Würzburg where I finished my PhD working in the Department of Zoology II. Before starting my postdoc, I had the oppportunity to work with Anna Stöckl on hawkmoth vision.
And now this...
After I finished my PhD, I moved on from the bee world and joined the lab of Jan Ache in the Department of Neurobiology and Genetics. As a postdoc, I investigate the brain of the fruit fly Drosophila . Here, I'm interested in Insulin-Producing Cells and how they are modulated by different modalities and neuron populations. These neurons are especially interesting since insulin plays a crucial role in controlling metabolic homeostasis and many other bodily functions across vertebrates and invertebrates. In addition, investigating the insulin system in Drosophila is highly attractive due to the availability of the unparalleled genetic toolkit in flies.
Check out my publications if you want to learn more about my past and ongoing research.
And one day...I might try to find out if ants can laugh.
The residence of Würzburg
My second love: fruit flies
My expertise
Over the past years, I acquired a broad variety of knowledge about different methods and model organisms:
Calcium-imaging
• Preparations for in vivo calcium imaging in fruit flies and honeybees
• Calcium indicator injections
Used equipment: - Custom-built Scientifica Widefield Scope
- Leica Multiphoton Microscope TCS SP8 MP
- Custom-built two-Photon Microscope
- Olympus Multiphoton Microscope FVMPE-RS - Spinning Disc-Mikroskop (Zeiss AxioObserver.Z1)
- Visual LED Arena
- Olfactometer (Rosco)
- Ball tracking setup for walking behavior recordings with FicTrac tracking software
- Wingbeat tachometer for flight behavior recordings
Whole cell patch-clamp
• Preparation for in vivo patch-clamp recordings in fruit flies
Used equipment: - Custom-built Scientifica Widefield Scope
Intracellular recordings
• Preparation for intracellular recordings in hawkmoths
Used equipment: - Custom-built Scientifica Widefield Scope
Transmissions-electron microscopy
• Tissue preparation and epoxy embedding
• Semi-thin and ultrathin section preparation
• Immuno-gold labeling
Used equipment: - TEM JEOL 2100, 200 kV
- High-pressure freezer Wohlwend HPF Compact
- Leica automatic ASF2 freeze substitution unit
- Ultracut ultramicrotome
Tracer injections
• Manual tracer injections combined with immunohistochemistry in honeybees
Immunohistochemistry
• Whole brain and slice preparations combined with immunohistochemical stainings
Microscopy
• Light- and confocal microscopy
Used equipment: - Leica Multiphoton-microscope TCS SP8 MP
- Leica CLSM TCS SP5
- Zeiss Axioskop
Programming languages
• Python & MATLAB
Click here to learn more about the Ache lab
Click here to learn more about the Pfeiffer lab
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