Keywords
Equipment & Techniques
During my PhD, I have been carrying out studies using lampreys as an animal model for spinal cord injury. Lampreys are a good model of regeneration/plasticity. But, also has some limitations. For example, their life cycle takes between 5 and 7 years from birth to sexual maturity. Therefore, it is highly impractical to generate stable mutant or transgenic lines in the laboratory. In contrast to lampreys, the fruit-fly, Drosophila, is genetically tractable and there are tools and innovations in genetic, imaging, and electrophysiological technologies that have enabled the visualization, in vivo, of dynamic processes such as dendritic growth and synapse development. For this reason, I joined to the group of Dr Matthias Landgraf, who has extensive experience in the use of drosophila as a model for the study of the development of the nervous system. In the long run, I want to harness the genetics of Drosophila to identify candidate pathways and genes involved in nervous system development.
