Visitor of the Week: Emma Spikol

Meet Emma Spikol of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The graduate student in the Neuroscience Training Program is doing her thesis work in the lab of Dr. Marnie Halpern at the Carnegie Institution Department of Embryology, and serves as the co-president of Project Bridge a student-run outreach organization at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Emma travelled north to Long Island to take part in her first meeting at CSHL, Zebrafish Neural Circuit and Behavior where she presented a talk on “Identifying targets of the asymmetric dHb-IPN neural pathway” that was met with “interesting questions that got [her] thinking about future experiments.”   

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
The Halpern lab uses the zebrafish model to study a region of the brain which exhibits prominent left-right differences both neuroanatomically, and in neural responses to negative stimuli. I’m working on understanding how these responses might be propagated through connected neural pathways to influence fear behaviors.

How did you decide to make this to focus of your research?
I became fascinated by neuroscience and the zebrafish model while studying regulation of neurohormone gene expression for my undergraduate research project in the lab of Dr. Eric Glasgow at Georgetown University. Zebrafish are exceptional breeders, making them highly amenable to genetic manipulations. Their embryos are also transparent, which provides easy access to manipulate and observe the nervous system in live animals. I was inspired to use zebrafish to study conserved vertebrate neural pathways, while taking advantage of the genetic tractability of this model to manipulate specific neuronal subpopulations.

How did your scientific journey begin?
After becoming fascinated by genetics during my high school biology class, I worked in a Drosophila lab led by Dr. Julie Williams at the University of Pennsylvania. While maintaining the fly stocks and learning other laboratory tasks, I joined in conversations with students and postdocs and attended seminars—I was excited to realize that a career in science would involve both imagination and lively discourse. The lab focused on the genetic underpinnings that regulate immunity and sleep, which got me interested in the relationship between genes, neural circuits, and behavior.

Was there something specific about the Zebrafish Neural Circuit and Behavior meeting that drew you to attend?
I was drawn to this meeting because of its specialized nature—I was excited to engage in conversations with other researchers in the growing field of neural circuits and behavior. Also, as a graduate student, the chance to present my work was important—a great opportunity to get feedback and improve my communication skills. 

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting?
Sophisticated genetic tools and imaging technologies are being applied in creative ways to understand how neural circuits influence many different behavioral outputs in zebrafish.

What and/or how will you apply what you’ve learned from this meeting to your work?
I think there were a lot of interesting presentations about circuits that control motor behavior. I’ve been thinking about how the neurons I’m studying might influence these circuits, which could lead to some interesting research questions in the future.  

If someone curious in attending this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would say it’s a great opportunity to meet and talk to others in your field. The small size of this meeting allows you to take advantage of the opportunity to sit with others outside of your own lab at meals and other events.

I knew this would be a great opportunity to hear about the latest work in my field and get critical feedback on my own project, but I wasn’t expecting to meet so many new colleagues. It has been really fun to meet other researchers and discover that we already have mutual friends or are connected in some way!

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
Sitting outside and taking in the gorgeous views and natural setting!

Thank you to Emma for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Visitor of the Week: Nabil Karnib

Meet Nabil Karnib of Bowling Green State University. The Lebanese national is a PhD student in Robert Huber’s Lab and is presently taking part in the 2019 meeting of Neurobiology of Drosophila. Nabil “heard a lot of positive reviews [about the Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting] from colleagues and though he “underestimated the engaging aspect of it,” it was up to his expectations. Our biennial fly meeting is his first meeting at CSHL and his inaugural experience included a poster presentation. This wasn’t his first time presenting a poster, but it was the first time he presented his work to such a targeted audience. The result? “Everyone was engaged and enthusiastic about [his] work [so] the feedback [he received] was highly constructive and gave [him] a lot of ideas to incorporate in [his] project trajectory.”

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am interested in substance abuse, in particular what makes an individual more prone to get addicted to a certain compound. I use the Drosophila to understand the underlying mechanisms for this susceptibility.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
The ability to answer complex behaviors in a relatively simple model that could be translated clinically.

How did your scientific journey begin?
I was always intrigued by behavioral neuroscience: the fact that any normal or maladaptive behavior can be tracked and studied with the appropriate tools. Particularly, tracing the resilient/susceptible phenotype to depression to underlying epigenetic and genetic mechanisms and studying behavioral abnormalities following hypoxic seizures marked the beginning of my career in science.

Was there something specific about the Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting that drew you to attend?
My main reasons for attending the Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting were to know the state of the art in this field and establish collaborations. CSHL and the organizers provided the best platform for this. I identified and approached laboratories doing similar and complementary work to ours, laying foundations for future collaborations. 

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
Collaboration makes science happen.

What and/or how will you apply what you’ve learned from the meeting to your work?
I was introduced to several techniques during the talks and the poster sessions that would be a great asset for my project. Also, it was insightful to see how different groups tackle the same questions using different approaches.

If someone curious in attending this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would definitely encourage them to attend. It’s a congenial environment to give and receive feedback on science. I return to the lab with a new understanding of novel techniques and approaches to expand my repertoire. The topics covered a vast range, from basic scientific questions to disease modeling and technological innovations done at the highest levels. The heterogeneity of the topics along with the fast pace of the sessions made the meeting highly engaging.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
The picturesque backdrop of Long Island, the chance to see the Big Apple and the new friendships I made.

Thank you to Nabil for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Visitor of the Week: Sheenah Bryant

Meet Sheenah Bryant of Central Michigan University. Sheenah is an adjunct research faculty member in Ute Hochgeschwender’s lab, and a proud single mom and Native American. She is on campus for the Ion Channels in Synaptic and Neural Circuit Physiology course where she has been expanding her expertise in generalized ion channel regulation.

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am interested in studying the mechanisms of neural circuit formation in development. I hope to characterize changes inneurons resulting from neural hyperactivity during development, and the changes in neural circuit trajectories that control adult behavior.

How did decide to make this the focus of your research?
My dissertation focused on characterizing individual cell membrane proteins. Near the end of my doctoral work, I was introduced to novel method of neural control during a lightning talk by a member of my postdoctoral PI's lab. Those two minutes inspired me with many fundamental questions about neurons, and even our brain, that could be studied by controlling neural activity using bioluminescence-driven optogenetics. I knew immediately that this was the work I wanted to dedicate my research career to.

How did your scientific journey begin?
I have loved the creative curiosity of science since I was very young.  As a Native American and also a single mother, my path thus far has been filled with challenges of doubt and sacrifice, and great reward. I feel passionately that pursuing my dreams as a developmental neuroscientist will inspire my children and the Native American students I meet throughout my career, to pursue their dreams regardless of how unknown or difficult the journey may seem.

Was there something specific about the Ion Channels in Synaptic and Neural Circuit Physiology course that drew you to apply?
I knew this course would be an intense few weeks of classroom and lab training of powerful techniques for studying the contribution of ion channels to neuron functionality, which is at the core of my research goals. Attending a CSHL course is an amazing opportunity because they bring together experts from all over the world to instruct and lecture.

What and/or how will you apply what you’ve learned from the course to your work?
The research techniques I have learned -- such as cultured cell, tissue slice and in vivo patch-clamp electrophysiology -- has helped me to exploit my expertise of generalized ion channel regulation towards answering questions within the field of neuroscience. Each of these techniques I will need to study the relationship between ion channel activity and behavior of organisms.

What is your key takeaway from the Course?
This course is providing me with a clear understanding of how proper regulation of ion channels enables neural function and circuit formation, and the cutting edge techniques used to study these relationships.

If someone curious in attending the Ion Channels in Synaptic and Neural Circuit Physiology course asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I highly recommend this experience to all students at the beginning of their research careers. In a very short amount of time, I successfully mastered difficult experimental techniques and learned the scientific foundation of my new field of study. I hope to attend several other courses during my postdoctoral training.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
The extremely knowledgeable instructors and guest speakers were very kind and excited to be here. It is such a fun and collegial atmosphere, which I'm sure I will take with me to my postdoctoral university.

Sheenah received funding support from her PI’s National Science Foundation (NSF) NeuroNex grant. On behalf of Sheenah, thank you to NSF for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend training course where they expand their skills, knowledge, and network.

Thank you to Sheenah for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Visitor of the Week: Heiko Schutt

Meet Heiko Schütt of the University of Tübingen (Germany). Heiko is currently finishing his PhD in Felix Wichmann’s lab within the Neural Information Processing Group. He is on campus attending his first CSHL course: Computational Neuroscience: Vision. 

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I model human visual behavior: what images humans can differentiate and where in the image they look. For my models, I use neural data for inspiration which I implement using image-processing methods.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research? 
I knew I wanted to study visual perception once I realized how well it can be understood and the number of fascinating problems still unresolved. For example, I am deuteranope which means I am missing the photoreceptor type needed to register medium wave length lights. Therefore, there are some colors which I cannot differentiate. As this process is well understood, we can calculate which colors I can identify and which ones I cannot. Displaying colors on a screen, which everyone -- but me -- could easily distinguish from each other made a very impressive illustration. Such exact predictions are a rarity in neuroscience and psychology, and gave me hope that exact solutions are possible in other parts of vision science. 

How did your scientific journey begin? 
My scientific journey began as a psychology student in Gießen, which has a large group of psychologists working on visual perception. I started as a research assistant and was immediately fascinated by the illusions in visual perception, its complexities, and how much we can understand in this field.

Was there something specific about the Computational Neuroscience: Vision course that drew you to apply?
I was mainly drawn to apply for this course by the great collection of speakers and alumni. This course really brings together a broad selection of world-leading scientists in this field.

What and/or how will you apply what you've learned from the course to your work? 
I learned a lot about the neural basis of my models. The retinal physiology discussed at the course will be a great source of inspiration for the front end of the early vision model I currently develop.

What is your key takeaway from the course?
The most important takeaway are the people I have met here. Of course, I increased my knowledge and beliefs about visual neuroscience, but getting to know the researchers behind the original studies and meeting a great set of peer scientists will be invaluable for my future in science.

If someone curious in attending this course asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
If you can attend, do it! This is one of the best visual neuroscience courses in the world. Once you are here, don’t take yourself too seriously and allow yourself to get to know the science and other scientists.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
From our evening discussions to our Nerf gun battles, ultimate Frisbee matches, and evenings on the beach - I enjoyed the relaxed attitude of this course.

Heiko received a scholarship from the Helmsley Charitable Trust to cover a portion of his course tuition. On behalf of Heiko, thank you to the Helmsley Charitable Trust for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend a CSHL course where they expand their skills, knowledge, and network. 

Thank you to Heiko for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.