View details of past projects conducted in the Visiting Scientist Program.
Toward Studying Circuit Dynamics and Stimulus Integration in Drosophila
OCTOBER 20, 2008 - MAY 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Misha Ahrens (Ph.D. Student, University College of London) |
| Hosts: | Vivek Jayaraman and Michael Reiser (Fellows) |
| Objective: | To monitor the activity of multiple neurons in behaving fruit flies using miniaturized multi-electrode probes designed for extracellular recordings in the Drosophila brain. |
Engineering New Tools for Temperature Control
MAY 1, 2009 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Haider Ali (Masters Student, Old Dominion University) |
| Host: | Michael Reiser (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To test new tools for temperature control of behavioral rigs. |
Assay for a Fear-like State in Drosophila
SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | David Anderson (HHMI Investigator and Professor of Biology, California Institute of Technology) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To develop a novel assay for detecting a "fear"-like state in Drosophila. |
MtDNA Nucleoid Dynamics in Models of Neurodegeneration
OCTOBER 1, 2007 - MARCH 31, 2008
| Visitor: | Dan Bogenhagen (Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, SUNY Stony Brook) |
| Hosts: | Eric Betzig (Group Leader) and David Clayton (Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To use super-resolution imaging techniques to study the mechanisms of nucleoid replication in mitochondria. |
Algorithms for Reconstructing Neurons from Serial Electron Microscopy
NOVEMBER 1, 2010 - MARCH 31, 2011
| Visitors: | Ronen Basri (Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science) and Daniel Glasner (Ph.D. Student, Weizmann Institute of Science) |
| Hosts: | Dmitri Chklovskii (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop algorithms that will aide in the 3-D reconstruction of the fly brain. |
Systematic Screen of GAL4 Lines Using a Larval Behavioral Assay
MARCH 1, 2009 - AUGUST 31, 2011
| Visitors: | Michael Bate (Professor of Zoology, University of Cambridge) and K. VijayRaghavan (Senior Professor and Executive Director, National Centre for Biological Sciences, India) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To screen the Janelia collection of GAL4 driver lines using a simple system for the rapid screening of larvae crawling on an agar surface. |
Strategies for Imaging DNA and DNA-Protein Interactions at High Temporal and Spatial Resolution
DECEMBER 1, 2010 – MAY 31, 2011
| Visitor: | Fabian Blombach (Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University) |
| Hosts: | Loren Looger (Group Leader), Chuck Shank (Senior Fellow) and Luke Lavis (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To develop new methods for imaging DNA and DNA-protein interactions at high resolution. |
Optical Control of Olfactory Circuits in the Mouse
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 - AUGUST 31, 2011 (renewal)
| Visitor: | Thomas Bozza (Assistant Professor of Neurobiology and Physiology, Northwestern University) and Matt Smear (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Dmitry Rinberg (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To assign specific murine Olfactory Receptor (OR) genes to specific odorants using Channelrhodopsin and light induction in a behavioral assay and to map the connections of those specific OR gene expressing receptor neurons to mitral cells in the olfactory bulb. |
A Novel Green Fluorescent Protein from Echinoderms Provides a Long-Term Record of Neuronal Activity
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | Paul Brehm (Group Leader, Vollum Institute) and Mark Verdecia (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Hosts: | Loren Looger (Group Leader) and Luke Lavis (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To clone and purify a naturally occurring fluorescence protein that exhibits a calcium-dependent fluorescence activity (which may be used as a marker of neuronal activity) from the starfish Ophiopsila californica. |
Large-scale Recordings of Neurons in the Intact Cortex
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 - AUGUST 31, 2011 (renewal)
| Visitors: | Gyorgy Buzsáki (Board of Governors Professor, Rutgers University), Attila Losonczy (Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Columbia University) and Sébastien Royer (Research Specialist, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Hosts: | Jeff Magee (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To determine the circuit mechanisms of behaviorally relevant neuronal network activity by silencing specific interneuron populations and recording the impact on the electrical activity patterns of large numbers of neurons in the hippocampus during theta-state exploratory behavior. |
Comparative Microarchitectural Analysis of Somato-sensory Centers in the Drosophila Larval Central Nervous System
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - MARCH 31, 2011
| Visitors: | Albert Cardona (Group Leader, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich) and Casey Schneider-Mizell (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich) |
| Hosts: | Marta Zlatic (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To study connectivity patterns and microcircuitry of somato-sensory processing centers in the Drosophila larval central nervous system. |
Serial Section Electron Microscopy in the Fly Brain: Pilot study for Large-Scale Mapping
MARCH 15, 2008 - JUNE 30, 2008
| Visitors: | Albert Cardona (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles) |
| Hosts: | Julie Simpson (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To map regions of the fly nervous system by electron microscopy by employing three parallel methods: to install software for automatic imaging at the electron microscope; to apply sectioning, automatic imaging and image assembly of an entire segment of the Drosophila first instar larva ventral nerve cord; to engineer new fly lines for future functional studies. |
Development of Computer Vision Algorithms for Reconstruction of Neuronal Wiring Diagrams from EM Images
JUNE 1, 2012 - SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
| Visitors: | Anirban Chakraborty (Graduate Student, University of California, Riverside) |
| Hosts: | Mitya Chklovskii (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To help develop computer vision algorithms for automated reconstruction of neuronal wiring diagrams from electron microscopy images. |
A Drosophila Larval Ventral Nerve Cord Atlas
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | Barry Condron (Associate Professor of Biology, University of Virginia) and Elizabeth Daubert (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Virginia) |
| Hosts: | Jim Truman (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop an atlas of all the neurons in the abdominal segments of the Drosophila ventral nerve cord (VNC). |
Novel Computational Approach to RNA Structure Finding: 2/5D
AUGUST 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitors: | Ilan Davis (Professor of Biochemistry, The University of Oxford) and Russell Hamilton (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Oxford) |
| Hosts: | Sean Eddy (Group Leader) and Elena Rivas (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To study the local regulation of gene expression at synapses, which may be the mechanism for some types of synaptic plasticity, through the development of an improved "2.5D" computational method for the prediction of RNA secondary structures (which often underlie synaptic targeting sites). |
High-Order Control of Behavior in Drosophila
DECEMBER 20, 2006 - DECEMBER 19, 2007
| Visitor: | Michael Dickinson (Zarem Professor of Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology) |
| Host: | Michael Reiser (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To develop new behavioral assays for Drosophila. |
Structure/Function Studies in the Control of Locomotion by the Drosophila Thoracic Ganglion
MARCH 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Michael Dickinson (Zarem Professor of Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology) |
| Host: | James Truman (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To study how the small number of neurons in the Drosophila brain that contain descending projections into the thoracic ganglion control and integrate both major modes of locomotion in the adult: walking and flight. |
Numerical Models for Neurobiology Measurements
OCTOBER 1, 2010 – SEPTEMBER 30, 2011
| Visitor: | Michael Dickinson (Zarem Professor of Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology) |
| Host: | Michael Reiser (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To develop new behavioral assays for Drosophila. |
Structure/Function Studies in the Control of Locomotion by the Drosophila Thoracic Ganglion
MARCH 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Alexander Efros (Center for Computational Material Science, Naval Research Laboratory) |
| Host: | Tim Harris (Director, Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group) |
| Objective: | To provide a theoretical description of measurements and experimental data analyses in collaboration with multiple labs at Janelia (Karel Svoboda, Alla Karpova, Dmitry Rinberg). |
Integration of the Pfam Database and Recent HMMER Software Developments
OCTOBER 1, 2008 - FEBRUARY 28, 2009
| Visitor: | Robert Finn (Postdoctoral Fellow, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute) |
| Host: | Sean Eddy (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To test the integration of the Pfam protein families database curated in Alex Bateman's lab at the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute and the protein sequence analysis software package called HMMER developed by Sean Eddy's lab at Janelia. |
Plasticity Studies with Quantitative Imaging Methods
JUNE 1, 2008 - MARCH 31, 2009
| Visitors: | Kevin Fox (Professor and Head of Research, Cardiff School of Biosciences) and Sandra Kuhlman (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) |
| Host: | Karel Svoboda (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To study plasticity of circuits in the mouse barrel cortex and somatosensory whisker cortex using new imaging and circuit mapping techniques developed in the Svoboda lab. |
Visual Place Learning in Drosophila
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | TJ Florence (M.D./Ph.D. Student, Columbia University) |
| Host: | Michael Reiser (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head), and Charles Zuker (HHMI Columbia Senior Fellow) |
| Objective: | To study place learning in Drosophila and then pursue the neural mechanisms underlying these behaviors. |
Characterization of the molecular mechanisms underlying migrations of highly motile cells
FEBRUARY 15, 2013 – MARCH 31, 2013
| Visitor: | Lillian Fritz-Laylin (University of California, San Fransisco) |
| Host: | Eric Betzig (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To understand how forces are generated at the leading edge and how membranes are deformed. |
Determining the Local Rules for Wiring the Nervous System
JUNE 1, 2010 – AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | Catherine Galbraith (Senior Research Fellow, National Institutes of Health/NICHD) and James Galbraith (Senior Research Fellow, National Institutes of Health/NINDS) |
| Host: | Harald Hess (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To utilize super-resolution imaging to define molecular rules governing the assembly of several key physical linkages involved in path-finding and synaptogenesis. |
Identification and Annotation of Glia GAL4 Drivers
OCTOBER 1, 2010 – AUGUST 31, 2011 (renewal)
| Visitors: | Ulrike Gaul (Professor, GeneCenter, LMU Munich) and Malte Kremer (Ph.D. Student, GeneCenter, LMU Munich) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To screen and annotate the Janelia collection of GAL4 lines for glial expression |
Examining Innate Odor Responses in Mice
JUNE 14, 2010 – AUGUST 20, 2010
| Visitor: | Utsav Goel (Undergraduate Student, Northwestern University |
| Host: | Dmitry Rinberg (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To set up an assay to measure innate odor responses in mice and to study the effects of activating a subset of glomerular domains on specific innate responses. |
Inferring Function from Electron Microscopy Reconstructions
JUNE 1, 2010 - AUGUST 31, 2011 (renewal)
| Visitor: | Henry Greenside (Professor of Physics, Duke University) |
| Host: | Dmitri Chklovskii (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To apply theoretical and computational physics to uncover the link between the anatomy of the fly optic lobe and vision and the anatomy of the fly antennal lobe and olfaction in Drosophila. |
Mapping Neuropile Compartments and Neuropile Foci in the Drosophila Brain
OCTOBER 1, 2007 - DECEMBER 31, 2007
| Visitor: | Volker Hartenstein (Professor of Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology, University of California, Los Angeles) |
| Hosts: | Julie Simpson and Gene Myers (Group Leaders) |
| Objective: | To lay down the groundwork for a mapping project by defining and unifying existing models of brain regions: define and name neuropile compartments and fiber tracts by light analysis using a neuronal marker, nc82; further define small subdivisions ("foci") within the neuropile compartments using a lineage-based approach. |
Development of a Gap-Crossing Paradigm to Study Risk Taking in Flies
AUGUST 1, 2010 – AUGUST 31, 2010
| Visitor: | Ulrike Heberlein (Professor of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco) |
| Hosts: | Kevin Moses (Chief Academic Officer) and Fly Olympiad Team |
| Objective: | To explore the feasibility of adapting the gap-crossing paradigm assay developed in the Strauss lab to look at the effects of ethanol on risk taking. |
Development of an In Vivo Approach to Study Network Function in the Locust Central Complex
MAY 15, 2008 - JUNE 7, 2008
| Visitor: | Stanley Heinze (Professor of Biology and Animal Physiology, University of Marburg) |
| Host: | Vivek Jayaraman (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To develop a reliable method for paired recordings from polarization-sensitive neurons of the central-complex of the fly brain, while simultaneously loading the neurons with Ca++-sensitive dyes for in vivo identification of the neuron type and imaging of its dendrites. |
Calcium Imaging from the Neuromusculature of Behaving C. Elegans
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | William Schafer (Programme Leader, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) and Victoria Butler (Graduate Student, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) |
| Host: | Mitya Chklovskii (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To understand how patterns of neuromuscular activity generate C. elegans locomotor behavior. |
Studies on the Drosophila Brain
OCTOBER 1, 2008 - DECEMBER 31, 2008
| Visitor: | Martin Heisenberg (Professor and Head of Department for Genetics and Neurobiology, Universität Würzburg) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To understand how neural circuits control behavior: the epistemology of neuroscience from the perspective of behavior. |
Coordination of Fish Retinal Stem Cells during the constant growth of the Eye
JANUARY 20, 2013 - FEBRUARY 28, 2013
| Visitor: | Burkhard Höckendorf (Heidelberg University, Centre for Organismal Studies) |
| Host: | Philipp Keller, (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To study the neural cells of the retina in zebrafish. |
Neural Basis of Flexible Visual Behaviors
MARCH 1, 2010 – FEBRUARY 28, 2011
| Visitor: | Stephen J. Huston (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Hosts: | Vivek Jayaraman (Group Leader) and Michael Reiser (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To investigate how neural circuits implement flexible sensory-motor transformation by determining how the Drosophila visuomotor circuit adjusts its visual tuning to compensate for changes in flight posture. |
Coordination of Fish Retinal Stem Cells during the constant growth of the Eye
JANUARY 20, 2013 - FEBRUARY 28, 2013
| Visitor: | Burkhard Höckendorf (Heidelberg University, Centre for Organismal Studies) |
| Host: | Philipp Keller, (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To study the neural cells of the retina in zebrafish. |
Bidirectional Interaction Between the Basal Ganglia and Superior Colliculus
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 – DECEMBER 31, 2010
| Visitors: | Jeffry Isaacson (Professor, Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego) |
| Hosts: | Gabe Murphy (Fellow) and Josh Dudman (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To characterize synaptic signaling activity between the basal ganglia and superior colliculus. |
Quantitative Live Imaging of Early Mouse Embryogenesis
JULY 15, 2012 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | Shankar Srinivas (University Lecturer, University of Oxford) and Tomoko Watanabe (Graduate Student, University of Oxford) |
| Host: | Philipp Keller (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To perform imaging test experiments with CAG/Hex mouse lines to develop a culturing protocol for early embryos in our light sheet microscopes. |
Unraveling the Neural Code in the Mammalian Olfactory Bulb
JUNE 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Alexei Koulakov (Associate Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) |
| Host: | Dmitry Rinberg (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To combine bioinformatics with genetic and electrophysiological techniques towards the construction of a verifiable model for olfactory coding in the mouse brain. |
An Ensemble Approach to RNA Motif Finding
APRIL 1, 2011 – AUGUST 31, 2011
| Visitor: | Charles Lawrence (Professor of Applied Mathematics, Brown University) |
| Host: | Sean Eddy (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop a new probabilistic statistical model and associated algorithm for RNA motif finding. |
The Role of the Dorsolateral Striatum in Timing Motor Responses
DECEMEBR 1, 2011 - NOVEMBER 30, 2012
| Visitors: | Joseph Paton (Fellow, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Portugal) and Yi Li (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Joshua Dudman (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To develop better methods for achieving high temporal measurements of animal states (behavioral and physiological) through two parallel approaches: improved video analysis and simple analog electronics. |
Single-Cell Analysis of the Drosophila Brain
AUGUST 1, 2008 - JUNE 30, 2009
| Visitors: | Tzumin Lee (Associate Professor of Neurobiology, University of Massachusetts Medical School), Hung-Hsiang Yu (Research Specialist, HHMI/Janelia), and Shun Jen Yang (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To develop twin-spot double-marked mosaic analysis to characterize neuroblast lineages in the fly brain. |
New Bioinformatic Tools for Image Processing and Analysis
JUNE 21, 2010 – SEPTEMBER 18, 2010
| Visitors: | Min Liu (Ph.D. Student, University of California, Riverside) |
| Host: | Gene Myers (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop algorithms and software for the presentation and analyses of images produced by confocal light microscopy. |
Isolation & Characterization of Potently Brain-active Natural Compounds
OCTOBER 25, 2010 – DECEMBER 15, 2010
| Visitor: | Sandra Loesgen (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of California, San Diego) |
| Hosts: | Luke Lavis (Fellow) and Loren Looger (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To isolate & structurally characterize natural products (mainly small molecules) that are potently active on the brains of model organisms. |
Social Behavior in Rodents
FEBRUARY 1, 2008 - JANUARY 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Zachary Mainen (Group Leader, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Portugal) |
| Host: | Alla Karpova (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop an animal model of reciprocity in rats with the aim of eventually studying the neural circuits that underlie this task. |
Identifying Enhancers that Drive Restricted Patterns of Gene Expression in Drosophila Imaginal Discs
JANUARY 1, 2011 – DECEMBER 31, 2011
| Visitor: | Richard Mann (Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University) and Aurélie Jory (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Columbia University) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To examine the expression of Janelia's GAL4 lines in fly larval discs. |
Synthesis of Conformationally Constrained, Potent Small Molecule Switches for In Vivo Activation and Silencing of Molecularly-defined Neuron Populations
JUNE 1, 2009 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Eduardo Martinez (Senior Scientist, Medros, Inc.) |
| Host: | Scott Sternson (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To improve the potency of novel selective ligands of POAMS (tools used to activate and silence electrical activity in neurons in vitro developed by the Sternson lab) for in vivo studies by synthesizing analogs of two of these ligands with higher ligand-protein affinities. |
Structural Studies of Mammalian TRPV Channels
AUGUST 15, 2012 - NOVEMBER 30, 2012
| Visitors: | Vera Moiseenkova-Bell (Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University) and Kevin Huynh (Student, Case Western Reserve University) |
| Host: | Tamir Gonen (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To determine the high-resolution 3D structure of TRPV2 channels using X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM. |
New Bioinformatic Tools for Image Processing and Analysis
JUNE 7, 2010 – AUGUST 16, 2010
| Visitor: | Saket Navlahka (Ph.D. Student, University of Maryland, College Park) |
| Host: | Gene Myers (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop algorithms and software for the presentation and analyses of images produced by confocal light microscopy. |
Visual Place Learning in Drosophila
JULY 1, 2010 - JUNE 30, 2011 (renewal)
| Visitors: | Tyler Ofstad (M.D./Ph.D. student, University of California, San Diego) and Laura Henderson (Research Technician, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Hosts: | Michael Reiser (Fellow) and Charles Zuker (Senior Fellow and HHMI Investigator and Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, Columbia University) |
| Objective: | To study place learning in Drosophila and to pursue the neural mechanisms underlying these behaviors. |
The Role of Target-sensitive Descending Neurons in the Behaving Dragonfly
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Robert Olberg (Professor of Biology, Union College) |
| Host: | Anthony Leonardo (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To study the role of target-sensitive descending neurons (TSDNs) in the behaving dragonfly. |
Quantitative Behavioral Assays for Somatosensation in Head-Fixed Mice
OCTOBER 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Lorenz Pammer (Master's Student, University of Vienna, Austria) |
| Host: | Karel Svoboda (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To exploit the behavioral tools in the Svoboda lab to answer some basic questions about the kinematic and dynamic variables used by mice in whisker-based somatosensation. |
Imaging of the Living Brainstem
MARCH 1, 2010 – FEBRUARY 28, 2011
| Visitor: | Julian F. R. Paton (Professorial Research Fellow, Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Bristol) |
| Host: | Charles Zuker (Senior Fellow and HHMI Investigator and Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at Columbia University and Senior Fellow) |
| Objective: | To access gustatory areas of the mouse brain stem for imaging by 2-photon microscopy. |
Spatial Information Processing in Behaving Animals
JULY 1, 2009 - DECEMBER 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Eva Pastalkova (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Rutgers University) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To develop new tools for understanding the neural circuitry underlying spatial memory tasks in awake-behaving animals. |
Construction and Characterization of Transgenic RNAi Lines to Inactivate 1,000 Drosophila Genes with Nervous System Functions
JANUARY 1, 2007 - DECEMBER 31, 2008
| Visitors: | Norbert Perrimon (HHMI Investigator and Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School) and Charles Zuker (HHMI Investigator and Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To develop gene knock-out reagents to target about 1,000 genes that have relevance to CNS function in Drosophila. |
Variation in Behavior and Neural Representation Based on Social and Environmental Experience
JULY 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Christine Portfors (Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Washington State University) |
| Host: | Roian Egnor (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To compare the vocalization of mice born and raised in large, multi-generational cages to those raised in small faculty offices. |
Cellular dynamics in early embryonic development
OCTOBER 1, 2012 – OCTOBER 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Eduardo Andre Pulgar Pulgar (Miguel Concha's Laboratory, Universidad de Chile) |
| Host: | Philipp Keller (Janelia Fellow) |
| Objective: | To peform imaging experiments to quantitaively follow cellular dynamics in early embryonic development. |
Optimization of the Fly VNC and Larval Aligner
JULY 1, 2012 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Lei Qu (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Oslo) |
| Host: | Hanchuan Peng (Senior Scientist) |
| Objective: | To help the Peng group in refining the fly VNC and larva alignment method and bench test on large data sets. |
Using Array Tomography to Characterize Synapses in the Mouse
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 – AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Jong-Cheol Rah (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health) |
| Hosts: | Karel Svoboda, Dmitri Chklovskii, Gene Myers (Group Leaders) and Tim Harris (Director, Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group) |
| Objective: | To develop array tomography for the mapping of synapses in regions of the mouse brain. |
Computational Methods for Emerging Technologies
AUGUST 20, 2007 - DECEMBER 20, 2007
| Visitor: | Sven Rahmann (Group Leader in the AG Genominformatik, Technische Fakultät, at the Universität Bielefel) |
| Host: | Gene Myers (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop software for the analysis of neural structures in the fly. |
Tracking mRNA in Living Cells
JULY 15, 2012 - OCTOBER 12, 2012
| Visitors: | Anette Ouwehand (Professor, University of Massachusetts Medical School), Mark Hopman (Undergraduate Student, University of Applied Science Den Haag), and Kevin Tinholt (Undergraduate Student, TU Delft) |
| Host: | Robert Singer (Senior Fellow) |
| Objective: | To follow individual molecules that either perform or report on processes like transcription, its pre and post regulation and the fate of its products. |
Tap Habituation Screening in Caenorhabditis elegans
SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 - AUGUST 31, 2010
| Visitor: | Catharine Rankin (Associate Professor, University of British Columbia) and Andrew Giles (Ph.D. student, University of British Columbia) |
| Host: | Rex Kerr (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To conduct a genetic screen for worm learning mutants using the worm-tracker developed by Kerr's lab and a habituation assay developed in the Rankin lab. |
3D-Tracking of Research Mice Using Implanted RFID Tags
NOVEMBER 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2010
| Visitors: | Matthew Reynolds (Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University) and Stewart Thomas (Ph.D. student, Duke University) |
| Host: | Roian Egnor (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To develop a system to continuously record ultrasonic mouse vocalizations of 30-40 mice, while simultaneously tracking the identity and position of individual mice as they interact using implanted RFID tags developed by the Reynolds' lab. |
Investigating the Molecular Mechanisms Regulating DNA Transposition and Alternative Pre-mRNA Splicing in Drosophila
JANUARY 1, 2011 – AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Donald Rio (Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development, U.C., Berkeley) |
| Host: | Robert Tjian (HHMI President) |
| Objective: | To measure the kinetics of GTP-dependent formation of Drosophila P element transposase-DNA complexes and to visualize DNA looping catalyzed by these complexes by employing fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and total internal reflection (TIRF) microscopic methods. |
Development of viral tools to probe neural circuits
JUNE 1, 2011 - MAY 31, 2012
| Visitor: | David Schaffer (Professor, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Hosts: | Alla Karpova (Group Leader), Loren Looger (Group Leader), Josh Dudman (Fellow), Adam Hantman (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To deisgn novel viral tools for cell-specific targeting to probe neural function. |
Electronic Design Automation Tools and Biological Systems
SEPTEMBER 1, 2008 - JUNE 30, 2009
| Visitor: | Louis Scheffer (Fellow, Cadence Design Systems) |
| Host: | Dmitri Chklovskii (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To use "reverse engineering" methods adapted from electronic chip design to deduce function from the connection diagrams mapped for the fly brain. |
Autonomous Solid State Photo-optical Voltage Sensors
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 - AUGUST 31, 2011 (renewal)
| Visitor: | Axel Scherer (Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics and Physics and Co-Executive Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, California of Technology) |
| Host: | Tim Harris (Director, Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group) |
| Objective: | To create an autonomous (no wires) intracellular-voltage micro-sensor suitable for from >30 neurons simultaneously. |
Establishment of a Rapid, Robust System for Two-Photon Characterization of Small Molecule Dyes, Calcium Probes, Fluorescent Proteins, and Sensors
JULY 1, 2009 - DECEMBER 31, 2009
| Visitors: | Petra Schwille (Group Leader and Professor of Biophysics, TU-Dresden) and Jörg Mütze (Ph.D. student, TU-Dresden) |
| Hosts: | Tim Harris (Director, Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group), Loren Looger (Group Leader) and Luke Lavis (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To use 2-photon probes developed at Janelia to evaluate the properties of small-molecule calcium ion indicators commonly used in neuroimaging. |
Mouse Cortical Circuits
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Gordon Shepherd (Assistant Professor of Physiology, Northwestern University) and Mac Hooks (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Karel Svoboda (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To obtain a wiring diagram, including local and long-range circuits, in the mouse whisker sensory motor system in brain slices using laser-scanning photostimulation (LSPS) and ChR2 circuit mapping. |
Adaptation in the Olfactor System
MARCH 1, 2011 - AUGUST 31, 2011
| Visitor: | Yevgeniy Sirotin (Fellow, Rockefeller University) |
| Host: | Dima Rinberg (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To study how adaptation to novel odor environments changes odor representations in the olfactory bulb of awake mice. |
Identification and Annotation of Germline GAL4 Expression
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 – AUGUST 31, 2011
| Visitor: | Allan Spradling (HHMI Investigator and Professor of Embryology, Carnegie Institute of Washington) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To examine the expression of Janelia’s collection of GAL4 lines in ovaries and other tissues. |
Novel Approaches to Controlled Gene Expression in the Mouse Nervous System
JUNE 1, 2007 - MAY 31, 2008
| Visitor: | Thomas Südhof (HHMI Investigator and Professor of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas) |
| Hosts: | Alla Karpova and Sean Eddy (Group Leaders) |
| Objective: | To develop new methods to express transgenes in specific locations in the mouse brain. |
Olfactory Coding in the Awake Mouse Olfactory Bulb
SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 - OCTOBER 30, 2009
| Visitors: | David Tank (Professor of Molecular Biology and Physics, Princeton University) and Dave Markowitz (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Princeton University) |
| Host: | Dmitry Rinberg (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To understand the mechanisms underlying olfactory coding in awake behaving animals by applying analytical methods developed in the Tank lab to analyze recordings of mitral cells in the behaving mouse olfactory bulb upon odor exposure obtained from the Rinberg lab. |
Design and Synthesis of Novel Fluorogenic Rhodamine Derivatives for Imaging
JUNE 14, 2010 – AUGUST 20, 2010
| Visitor: | Eric Trautman (Undergraduate Student, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Host: | Luke Lavis (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To design, synthesize, and characterize new fluorogenic rhodamine derivatives for imaging. |
A Study of Microtubule Dynamics and Organization in Drosophila S2 Cells by Structured Illumination Microscopy
DECEMBER 1, 2009 – AUGUST 31, 2011
| Visitors: | Ron Vale (HHMI Investigator and Professor and Chair of Cellular and Molecular Biology at University of California, San Francisco), Susana Ribeiro (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of California, San Francisco) and Sarah Goodwin (Ph.D. Student, University of California, San Francisco) |
| Host: | Mats Gustafsson (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To use the structured illumination microscope developed in Gustafsson’s lab to explore the role of candidate microtubule-associated proteins in microtubule cytoskeleton dynamics in Drosophila S2 cells. |
Searching for novel ncRNA-encoding genes in S. meliloti
APRIL 1, 2008 - MAY 31, 2008
| Visitor: | Coral del Val Muñoz (Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Granada, Spain) |
| Host: | Elena Rivas (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To identify possible riboswitch candidates for Salmonella typhi, particularly focusing on genes that are involved in the pathogenesis, using a computational strategy developed by Elena Rivas and Sean Eddy. |
Aminergic modulation of antennal lobe processing
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | K. VijayRaghavan (Professor, National Centre of Biological Sciences) and Aman Aggarwal (Graduate Student, National Centre of Biological Sciences) |
| Host: | Vivek Jayaraman (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To manipulate and record from an identified seotinergic neuron, the CSD neuron, during odor stimulation of the adult fly and to understand its effect on odor processing in the antennal lobe. |
Studying mitral cell responses and sniffing in head fixed rats doing olfactory behavioral task
JUNE 1, 2006 - NOVEMBER 30, 2007
| Visitor: | Matt Wachowiak (Assistant Professor of Biology, Boston University) |
| Host: | Dmitry Rinberg (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To develop a head fixed assay for sniffing behavior in the rat. |
Input Transformation by Barrel Cortex Neurons
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitors: | Stephen Williams (Associate Professor, University of Queensland, Australia) and Mark Harnett (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Jeff Magee (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To characterize the computational properties of neocortical pyramidal and stellate neurons using 2-photon neurotransmitter uncaging in conjunction with targeted activation of specific subtypes of network interneurons as well as external excitatory inputs. |
A Pilot Study to Explore Multistable Perception by Drosophila
JANUARY 1, 2008 - MARCH 31, 2008
| Visitor: | Daw-An Wu (Postdoctoral Fellow, Vision Science Lab, Harvard) |
| Host: | Michael Reiser (Fellow) |
| Objective: | To detect multistable perception in Drosophila using flight-orientation behavior as an assay. |
New Bioinformatic Tools for the Alignment of Fruit Fly Brain Images
JANUARY 1, 2012 - JUNE 30, 2012
| Visitor: | Hang Xiao (Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) |
| Hosts: | Gene Myers (Group Leader) and Hanchuan Peng (Senior Scientist) |
| Objective: | To design and implement new algorithms for the alignment and registration of images of fruit fly brains. |
The Molecular Identity of Mammalian Neuronal Cell Types
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - DECEMBER 31, 2012
| Visitors: | Sacha Nelson (Professor, Brandeis University) and Ken Sugino (Research Associate, Brandeis University) |
| Host: | Adam Hantman (Fellow) and Sean Eddy (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To provide well characterized tools for the genetic analysis of mammalian cell and circuit function and to begin to understand the regulatory logic of cell type specific transcription. |
Optimization of the Vaa3D-ITK Code for Image Analysis Tasks
AUGUST 1, 2012 – AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Ping Yu (Graduate Student, Southeast University Najing) |
| Host: | Hanchuan Peng (Senior Scientist) |
| Objective: | To help the Peng Lab assess and potentially improve some of previously developed Vaa3D-ITK code for better pipelining in the Vaa3D system for various image analysis tasks. |
Functional Characterization of Interneurons in the Ventral Nerve Cord of the Drosophila Larva
JULY 1, 2008 - AUGUST 31, 2009
| Visitor: | Marta Zlatic (Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge and Visiting Fellow in Wes Grueber's Lab at Columbia University) |
| Host: | Fly Olympiad |
| Objective: | To identify functionally different interneurons that direct specific larval behaviors in Drosophila using the Janelia collection of GAL4 lines and an automated tracking system developed by Rex Kerr's lab at Janelia. |
Development of Methods to Assign Internal Energies to Unfolded, Single-Stranded RNA and DNA
SEPTEMBER 1, 2006 - JUNE 30, 2007
| Visitor: | Michael Zuker (Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) |
| Host: | Sean Eddy (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To develop software to analyze and predict RNA structure from primary sequence. |
Mitochondrial Dynamics in CNS Myelin
NOVEMBER 1, 2011 - APRIL 30, 2013
| Visitor: | Johanne Egge Rinholm (Professor, University of Oslo) |
| Host: | David Clayton (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To study the localization and mobility of mitochondria in oligodendrocytes and their myelin in the central nervous system. |
Investigating the Molecular Mechanisms Regulating DNA Transposition and Alternative Pre-mRNA Splicing
JANUARY 1, 2012 - AUGUST 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Donald Rio (Professor, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Host: | Robert Tjian (HHMI President) |
| Objective: | To measure the kinetics of assembly and disassembly of GTP-dependent Drosophila P element transposase-DNA complexes and to visualize GTP-dependent DNA looping catalyzed by the transposase protein by employing total internal reflection (TIRF) microscopic methods, as well as fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). |
Understanding the Neural Computations Underlying Olfactory Memory Using Physiology in Behaving adult Drosophila
DECEMBER 1, 2011 - NOVEMBER 30, 2012
| Visitors: | Glenn Turner (Assistant Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) and Rob Campbell (Postdoctoral Associate, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) |
| Host: | Vivek Jayaraman (Group Leader) |
| Objective: | To study neural dynamics underlying olfactory memory in behaving (tethered flying) Drosophila by combining the Turner lab's expertise with that of the Jayaraman lab. |
Analysis of Novel Compounds for Biological Research
JANUARY 1, 2012 - DECEMBER 31, 2012
| Visitor: | Laura Wysocki (Assistant Professor, Wabash College) |
| Host: | Luke Lavis (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To collaborate primarily with Luke Lavis in the synthesis and analysis of novel compounds for use in biological research. |
Cell-type Resolution Expression Atlas of Platynereis Development
APRIL 1, 2011 - MARCH 31, 2013
| Visitors: | Detlev Arendt (Group Leader, Developmental Biology, EMBL Heidelberg) and Mette Handberg-Thorsager (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Philipp Keller (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To generate the first cellular resolution expression atlas involving early developmental as well as differentiation stages for a whole animal, the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, using PrImR (Profiling by Image Registration) protocol developed by the Arendt lab. |
Genetic Control of Neuronal Connectivity
DECEMBER 1, 2010 – MARCH 31, 2013
| Visitors: | Bassem Hassan (Senior Group Leader, Laboratory of Neurogenetics, VIB and K.U. Leuven School of Medicine) and Bill Lemon (Research Specialist, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director) |
| Objective: | To map the atonal visual circuit in the pupa and the adult of Drosophila using the Janelia GAL4 collection. |
New Methods for Quantifying and Analyzing animal Behavior
JANUARY 1, 2012 - MARCH 3, 2013
| Visitors: | Joshua Shavevitz (Professor, Princeton University) and Gordon Berman (Postdoc, Shaevitz Lab, Princeton University) |
| Host: | David Stern (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) and Kristin Branson (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To develop new experimental, computational, and theoretical methods for quantifying and analyzing animal behavior. |
Neural Circuitry of Aggression
SEPTEMBER 1, 2012 – DECEMBER 31, 2013
| Visitors: | David Anderson (Professor, California Institute of Technology/HHMI), Eric Hoopfer (Post-doctoral fellow, California Institute of Technology), Brooks Zhongzheng Fu (Ph.D. Student, California Institute of Technology) |
| Host: | Gerry Rubin (Executive Director, Janelia Research Campus) |
| Objective: | To (1) refine these neuronal populations down to the specific cell types responsible for the phenotype; and (2) understand the relationship between the circuits that control different aspects of male social behavior. |
Structural Analysis of the Lactose Permease LacY in Membranes
APRIL 1, 2013 – MARCH 31, 2014
| Visitors: | William Dowhan (Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of Texas-Houston) and Heidi Vitrac (Postdoctoral Researcher in Dowhan's lab) |
| Host: | Tami Gonen (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To study how different lipids affect the conformational topology (structure) of the lactose permease LacY. |
Cell Type Specific Tools for Manipulating Synapses
JANUARY 1, 2012 - DECEMBER 31, 2013
| Visitors: | Anirvan Ghosh (Chair and Professor of Neurobiology, University of California, San Diego) and Tevye Stachniak (Associate, HHMI/Janelia) |
| Host: | Scott Sternson (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To develop cell-type specific chemical genetic and optogenetic approaches for manipulating subsets of synapses in molecularly-defined circuits. |
Tools For Studying the Neurobiology of Courtship Song
AUGUST 1, 2012 - JULY 31, 2013
| Visitor: | Mala Murthy (Assistant Professor, Princeton Neuroscience Institute) |
| Host: | David Stern (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To develop a novel multichannel system for assaying female responses to male courtship song. |
Migratory Dynamics and Cellular Changes during Vertebrate Embryonic Development
JULY 1, 2013 - DECEMBER 31, 2013
| Visitor: | Ankur Saxena (California Institute of Technology) |
| Host: | Eric Betzig (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To elucidate the migratory dynamics and cellular changes that occur in two critical processes during vertebrate embryonic development. |
Isolating GFP-marked Drosophila neuroblasts using microfluidic devices
NOVEMBER 1, 2013 – JANUARY 31, 2014
| Visitor: | Chi-Cheng Fu (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Host: | Tzumin Lee (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To determine the dynamic changes in gene expressions through the NB lineage development, to unravel the molecular mechanisms that govern the orderly production of distinct neuronal siblings in such a fast tempo. |
New Optical Methods for Deep Brain Imaging in vivo
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 - DECEMBER 31, 2013
| Visitor: | Chen Wang (Research Fellow, Chinese Academy of Science) |
| Host: | Na Ji (HHMI/Janelia Lab Head) |
| Objective: | To implement a two-color two-photon approach on in vivo brain imaging, with the possibility of incorporating adaptive optical modules to the final microscope. |