Lots of comings and goings recently. Matt’s Career Development Fellowship came to an end in May, and while he’s moved onto a Lectureship here at King’s, this meant we sadly had to say goodbye to Annisa, who’s been with us right from the start. Annisa was absolutely instrumental in establishing our lab and the research we’re doing now, so we’re enormously grateful for the time she spent here, and wish her all the best with her new adventures in Berlin.
We also had two Master’s students finish their projects with us: Andrew, who patched more cells than he thought he would, and Marine, who got some really interesting data with her sensory manipulations. Good luck with the rest of your courses, guys!
In the same period we’ve had two new Master’s students join us: Chris, who’s looking for functional effects of sensory manipulation in acute olfactory bulb slices, and Marwa, who’s busy working her way through a library of potential markers for dopaminergic subpopulations. And we’ve (sort of) gained a PhD student too – Rosie, who did a rotation project with us way back in 2012, has officially stayed at King’s while the Keck lab relocated to UCL. And while we’re talking about ex-students, it’s great to known that Dutch Dennis finally found himself a PhD he can be happy about at Utrecht University.
As well as gaining and losing lab members with alarming regularity, Matt’s been busy presenting our work at the MRC Unit at Harwell, and on a whistle-stop tour of the neuroscience institutes of Basel – thanks especially to Douglas Bakkum at the BSSE for the original invite, as well as for coffee in the awesome ‘Science Lounge’. He also spent a hugely enjoyable two days at Chicheley Hall as the new FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence tried to figure out what to do with themselves. And the R&D with Theatre-Rites has continued to be great fun – they visited the lab and took lots of pictures, and we watched them improvise and assured them that life at the bench is rarely so dramatic.
Adna’s also been taking our science to the masses, representing the department at the recent Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience PhD showcase, giving a great Internal Seminar, and winning 3rd prize in the King’s ‘3-minute thesis’ competition! And last but by no means least, Elisa, when not tutoring our army of project students, has been inspiring our nation’s youth through Brilliant Club and found time to present our work for some much needed departmental feedback.
