News

4 RA posts available in the newly established Drosophila connectomics group

Up to four research assistant posts are available in the newly established Drosophila connectomics group headed by Greg Jefferis and Matthias Landgraf. The positions are funded by a £3.25M Wellcome Trust collaborative award to the Department of Zoology. Start date is 10th October 2016 or as soon as possible.

The research project is in collaboration with co-applicants from HHMI Janelia Research Campus in the US (Gerry Rubin, Davi Bock), the MRC LMB in Cambridge and the University of Oxford Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (Scott Waddell). The project will reconstruct neurons and their connections from a recently completed electron microscopy (EM) volume of a whole adult fly brain. The focus will be the mushroom body (MB), a higher brain centre responsible for memory formation and state-dependent behaviour, whose fan-out, fan-in architecture has been compared to the mammalian cerebellum and hippocampus. We aim to describe the structure of 4000 core neurons in this circuit and their synaptic connections, revealing the precise neuronal framework within which memories are formed and recalled. Given the highly effective genetic reagents for circuit cracking and the large community (>50 labs) working on this region, our results should have a greater impact than any similar sized connectome at the present time.

CLOSING DATE:  16 September 2016

Informal enquiries about this project may be made to Dr. Gregory Jefferis:  gsxej2@cam.ac.uk.

For details and to apply: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/11298/

Posted on 09/09/2016