Laura Pellegrini, a postdoc at the Lancaster lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, grows mini-brains in Petri dishes to study neurodevelopment and brain-related diseases. In her talk, she introduced us to this peculiar model system and its applications in research.  The human brain and its complex neuropsychological disorders can hardly be modelled using animals. Still, most of what we know about the brain comes from experiments with mice. As Laura explained, cerebral organoids provide a fundamentally human yet conveniently simple model system to study brain development, bridging in vitro and in vivo techniques. Brain organoids are grown from embryonic stem cells by the addition of different…

This week’s talk saw Kelvin Dempster discuss his research at laboratories across the globe and his plans for the future. Kelvin is now a researcher at Francis Crick after an undergraduate degree at St. Andrews University. After a quick introduction, Kelvin dived into his research during his time in Japan for a summer internship at the University of Tokyo. Based on the research he aided, he discussed with clarity the regulation of locomotion (movement) in fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) larvae. Locomotion involves the movement of the larvae either forwards and backwards through waves of electrical signals along the larvae’s body through specific glutamatergic interneurons. Using imaging techniques, Kelvin showed how…