Drosophila Research Symposium
Schedule:
10:00 a.m. to noon | Session I: Gene Regulation in Development and Homeostasis
Kahn Auditorium (Chair: Ching-Po Yang, Ph.D.)
- 10:05 to 10:25 — Black and yellow: Effects on development, evolution, and behavior, Patricia Wittkopp, Ph.D.
- 10:35 to 10:47 — Regulation of the competency to generate INPs, Cyrina Ostgaard, Ph.D. candidate
- 10:55 to 11:07 — Post-transcriptional splicing of timeless at nuclear speckles controls circadian rhythms, Ye Yuan, Ph.D. candidate
- 11:15 to 11:27 — The development of instinctual behavioral circuits, Najia Elkahlah, Ph.D. Candidate
- 11:35 to 11:47 — A glutamate receptor important for cold sensation in Drosophila melanogaster, L. Amanda Xu, Undergraduate Student
Noon to 2:00 p.m. | Poster Session and Lunch
Upper Atrium and Seminar Rooms A,B,C
2:00 to 4:00 p.m. | Session II: Physiology & Aging
Kahn Auditorium (Chair: Elizabeth Fogarty, Ph.D.)
- 2:05 to 2:25 — Advancing systems-level developmental analysis through image informatics, Tomer Stern, Ph.D.
- 2:35 to 2:47 — Ring neurons in the Drosophila central complex comprise a rheostat for the sensory control of aging, Christi Gendron, Ph.D.
- 2:55 to 3:07 — Cell cycle re-entry in the aging Drosophila brain, Deena Damschroder, Ph.D.
- 3:15 to 3:27 — Spatial and temporal expression analysis of patterning and pigmentation genes using hybridization chain reaction (HCR) in Drosophila pupae, Erick Bayala, Ph.D.
- 3:35 to 3:47 — The temporal landscape of age-related genetically triggered neurodegeneration, Richard Albertson, M.D., Ph.D.
4:00 – 5:00 p.m. | Keynote Presentation: How to build motor circuits from stem cells, Elizabeth Heckscher, Ph.D.
Kahn Auditorium (Chair: Vanessa Puñal, Ph.D.)
Keynote Speaker
Ellie Heckscher received her bachelor's degree in biology from Brown University and her Ph.D. from UCSF. For her graduate research, she used the Drosophila larval neuromuscular system to study the effects of immune molecules on synaptic structure and function. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oregon, she worked to develop the Drosophila larvae into a system that could be used to study the development and function of motor circuits. In 2015, he joined the University of Chicago faculty as an assistant professor in the the Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2023.
Heckscher's lab studies the assembly, function and evolution of circuits. Specifically, they focus on sensorimotor circuits, such as those in the spinal cord. These circuits process a variety of stimuli such as heat, light touch, pain and self-movement. These circuits generate patterned muscle contractions underly animal movement.