Programme: Coffee/Tea from 9:15-9:45. 09:45-09:50: Introduction and welcome by Dr René Frank Session chaired by Prof Susan Deuchars 09:50-10:10: Prof Nikita Gamper (School Biomedical Sciences). ‘Modulation of somatosensory information flow at the dorsal root ganglion’. 10:10-10:30: Dr Lucy Stead (School of Medicine). ‘Glioblastoma: patient stratification and a role for neurotransmitter signaling’. 10:30-10:50: Dr Matthew Mulvey…
REST silencing results in hearing loss due to up regulation of Kv7 in the cochlea published in eLife Repressor element 1-silencing transcription factor (REST) is a transcriptional repressor that orchestrates large-scale changes in gene expression patterns. Although originally recognised as a suppressor of neuronal genes in non-neuronal cells, REST is now increasingly recognised for its…
We congratulate Dr René Frank for the award of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship entitled ‘The architecture of Alzheimer’s disease-associated pathology by cryo-electron tomography’, which provides £1.74million over 4 years to support René and his team. The fellowship will bridge length-scales from molecules to the whole brain to identify the in situ structural basis of…
Perineuronal nets (PNNs) are assemblies of extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules on the surface of neurones. PNNs have been implicated in the regulation of neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain to learn and adapt to the external environment. Previous studies have shown that the molecular composition of PNNs, particular the sulphation pattern on chondroitin sulphate…
Unravelling dorsal root ganglion as an intrinsic filtering device Congratulations to Nikita Gamper (PI) and David Jaffe (Co-I, UT San Antonio, Texas, USA) for receiving £552.5k for their project on ‘Unravelling dorsal root ganglion as an intrinsic filtering device’. This project builds on their recent discovery that spinal somatosensory ganglia actively filter peripherally-born action potentials traveling along…
Identifying novel mechano-receptors in the sensory nervous system Congratulations to Viktor Lukacs who has been awarded £681.8k for a project to discover the novel receptors and receptor-adjacent signalling molecules involved in detecting tactile stimuli in sensory nerves. These molecules, likely involved in the detection of mechanical pain, promise to be future molecular targets for the development…
Divide and rule: localised Ca2+ signalling in sensory neurons’ Congratulations to Nikita Gamper (PI), Izzy Jayasinghe (Co-I, Sheffield University) and Shihab Shah (RCo-I) who received £577k for their project investigating the intricate molecular mechanisms underlying inflammatory signalling in pain-sensing (nociceptive) sensory neurons. Specifically, they will investigate junctions between the plasma membrane (PM) and endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which…
In a new study published in Nature Professor Netta Cohen’s group provide the first complete spatial coordinates of the circuit diagrams for the nervous system of the nematode worm C. elegans. An adult worm has exactly 302 cells in its nervous system – by comparison, the human brain has around 100 billion cells. But almost two-thirds…
Nanoparticle-Based Imaging and Therapy of Chronic Pain in the Dorsal Root Ganglia (DRG)’ or PIANO Congratulations to Marzia Malcangio (KCL) the lead of the 15 member EU consortium who together received €4,093,424. Nikita Gamper is a lead of the ESR6 (GABAergic signalling in peripheral sensory ganglia and its role in pain processing), he is also…
In a new study published in Nature Communications, Dr. Delis collaborated with researchers at the University of Glasgow and Bielefeld University to study the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of incoming information from different senses. They showed that decision processes in the human brain drive improvements in perception and behaviour when multisensory information is available….
