Congratulations to Victoria King who won the PhD prize for best oral presentation at the 2019 Fetal and Neonatal Workshop of Australia and NZ, held in Australia last week. Victoria presented some of her preliminary PhD work, which evaluates ultradian rhythms in the developing fetal brain. Ultradian rhythms are shorter periods of physiological rhythms within the better known circadian cycles. In adults, these rhythms are important for regulating brain energy use. We know very little about them before birth, but they may be important for neural network development. Victoria presented work on methods for measuring fetal ultradian rhythms, and how they change with advancing fetal age and after exposure of the fetus to hypoxia.
Congratulations, Lucia Du who successfully defended her thesis entitled ‘Shedding light on the circadian clock regulation of innate immunity’. She was supervised by Dr Christopher Hall, Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology and co-supervised by Dr James Cheeseman, School of Medicine
We welcome, PhD students Maize Cao and Xiaojing Wu.
Maize Cao, PhD student department of Pharmacology. Her project title is ‘The Role of the Motor Neuron Disease Protein TDP-43 in Human Brain Pericytes and Microglia‘. She is supervised by Dr Emma Scotter and Professor Michael Dragunow.
Xiaojing Wu, PhD student department of Nutrition. Her project title is ‘Texture modified diets and their ability to improve health in the elderly’. She is supervised by Dr Andrea Braakhuis and co-supervised by Dr Anna Miles.