I have a rather varied horizon of interests. I come from a Neuroscience background and worked in learning and memory for years, first in Lymnaea stagnalis and then on Aplisia Californica. For a brief period I switched to schizophrenia endophenotypes in mice before finding a home in zebrafish research looking at energy homeostasis (with a few forays into cancer genetics). 

The focus of my lab is the role of leptin in fish - which in our hands do not get obese. So why not? What does leptin do if it isn't THE adipostat? We have so far slipped into reproductive biology and are looking at leptin signaling in female fish - pioneered by my first grad student!

If you are interested in more on my background, feel free to click on my CV.

Re-established that the Lepr LOF really does not become obese in our hands and that leptin signalling is indeed blocked - at least as far as SOCS3 acitvation is concerned. Differences do arise in our hands from even slight variation in holding conditions. Went on to find a reproductive phenotype in zebrafish which is currently the main thrust of the lab - how exactly does leptin modulate reproductive function?

Joined Amrutha on figuring out the role of leptin in reproduction. Defended his BSc thesis on 30.01.2023 and since rejoined the lab to learn genotyping and furhter his project to hopefully see it through to publication

Recently joined the lab in order to work on salt, cortisol and leptin, a collaborative project with Matt Vijayan.

Recently joined the lab in order to continue what Anna-Lena started - what metabolic pathways are induced in fish by leptin treatment?

Anna Lena worked in the lab during the Summer of 2023 on where leptin even comes from in Zebrafish and what does it induce - lots of qPCR. Found out that fasting really does not induce leptin in our hands as in other fish species and instead leptin seems to induce anabolic pathways. 

Marceline worked with Randy on the STEM outreach project - can we lower the treshold for experiments in the school classroom by preparing a set of low cost experiment instructions, fully prepared and oriented to the German curriculum?

Randy worked with Marceline on the STEM outreach project - can we lower the treshold for experiments in the school classroom by preparing a set of low cost experiment instructions, fully prepared and oriented to the German curriculum?

Worked on Fin Regeneration and the leptin system. Found out that the LepR LOF did not affect fin regeneration as we previously found. Did a lot of tracing back as to what may be the cause for the lost phenotype between Vanderbilt and Germany but sadly to no avail - the phenotype is lost for now.