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Dr Marta Zlatic
Dianna Bowles Lecture Theatre, B/K/018, Biology Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)
Event details
Abstract
TBC
About the speaker
Dr Marta Zlatic
Marta Zlatic FRS is a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Her research investigates how neural circuits generate behaviour.
After earning her doctorate, Zlatic was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge which allowed her to study the assembly of neural circuits. In 2009 Zlatic started her independent career at the Janelia Research Campus. At Janelia she learnt about the genetic tools used to manipulate the types of neurons in Drosophila. Zlatic has dedicated her career to the study of the nervous system, in particular the positional cue known as the slit protein which controls how sensory neuron axons start and stop growing. She showed that slit proteins control branching along the mediolateral axis but not the dorsoventral axis, indicating that there are positional cues in three-dimensions.
Zlatic is interested the complex functions of the human brain, including language and communication. She studies these phenomena in the Drosophila larva. She made use of electron microscopy to map the entire larval Drosophila connectome, and studies the strengths of the connections between neurons that are structurally connected. By investigating the connectivity of these neurons it is hoped that these particular patterns could be associated with the formation of memories.
Venue details
Wheelchair accessible
Hearing loop