Massey Neurogenetics Lab

Our new paper is out – a team effort by @wei_jun_tan, @hawley__hannah and @saraaah_Wilson in which we dissected the importance of molecular features of HDAC4 to neurodevelopment. @NatSciMassey doi.org/10.1186/s12915…

Schwartz, S., Wilson, S. J., Hale, T. K. and Fitzsimons, H. L. (2023). Ankyrin2 is essential for neuronal morphogenesis and long-term courtship memory in #Drosophila. Mol Brain 16(1): 42. molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

A lovely way to end a great conference in beautiful Cairns. A huge thanks to the organisers for putting on a wonderful event and to my supervisor @NeurogeneticsNZ for all your support and encouragement

A neat surprise to end a cool week in Cairns! Big thanks to the organisers for an amazing conference, and to my awesome supervisor @NeurogeneticsNZ for her support and getting us there

It has been really neat working on a small technique based manuscript with @NeurogeneticsNZ and the process of submission and review with @Micropub7n was quick and straight forward. Can’t wait to share more of our work! @NatSciMassey

We also compared the expression patterns of neuronal GAL4 drivers in the adult brain, and levels of expression in the mushroom body. While this colour scheme didn’t make the cut, these are the patterns of two of my favourite drivers elav and OK107 in the anterior of the brain!

Excited to share my first first-author paper with @Micropub7n Here we compared GAL80-based TARGET and AGES systems for regulation of GAL4 in the Drosophila brain. Both work with nSyb-GAL4; AGES resulted in stronger repression and TARGET higher expression doi.org/10.17912/micro…

A nice study by @hawley_hannah comparing different inducible systems and drivers for expression in the fly brain. @Micropub7n is a great avenue for PhD students to write and submit their first paper - user-friendly with a supportive review process. micropublication.org/journals/biolo…

New Short report: Ankyrin2 is essential for neuronal morphogenesis and long-term courtship memory in Drosophila molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

@Saraaah_Wilson @NatSciMassey A couple of @Saraaah_Wilson's beautiful images of Ank2 (green) showing widespread expression and localization to axons in the fly brain.

Very proud to share this work by @Saraaah_Wilson and Silvia Schwartz, which reveals a critical role for the cytoskeletal binding protein Ankyrin2 in both neuronal morphogenesis and adult long-term memory. @NatSciMassey doi.org/10.1186/s13041…

All our experiments are going to work because Pedro Pascal is watching over us

Happy St Paddy's day from our lab!

It was my privilege to know Matt During. He was my PhD supervisor and then my boss for several years. There was no-one like him - he had a brilliant mind and was a fearless boundary-pusher. He was a warm and generous man. All my love to his family. notices.nzherald.co.nz/nz/obituaries/…

Excited to share @Maddie_Palmer_'s Master's research! Herzog is not required for mushroom body development or courtship learning doi.org/10.17912/micro…

@NatSciMassey We dragged Ann, Cynthia and Justine down from the office to have a go and they proved themselves to be budding molecular biologists 😊. @cress99 was not keen for a photo though!

We just finished our last high school STEM visit for the year @NatSciMassey. We had a bunch of fun teaching year 10’s how to use pipettes and create some artistic designs with solutions of different pH. My favourites were a chicken and a safety shower complete with flames!

@JuliaHorsfield They are the best! We have a cream burmese, a lilac tortie burmese and a seal tonkinese so it's just 24/7 mischief!

@NeurogeneticsNZ Burmese 😍

Going to be late for work

@neurula @Saraaah_Wilson You set the ground work! 😊

@NeurogeneticsNZ @Saraaah_Wilson Just catching up on this old tweet. These are amazing @Saraaah_Wilson !!! Looks like you've mastered something I could never figure out. Ka rawe 😊

Some sci-art from @saraaah_wilson to brighten your day! She just finished her first pupal eye dissections and check out the beautiful symmetry of the ommatidial array (actually if you are a keen observer you will see some extra cells in there..)