Thompson Lab 1/25/2005

Recent News:

Stuart Thompson’s group has seen a number of changes this year. Graduate student Melissa Coates successfully defended her extraordinary dissertation research on the complex eyes and visually guided behaviors of box jellyfish; a fine contribution to our understanding of the evolution of visual performance. During the year Melissa completed a Fulbright fellowship in Sweden , traveled to three continents, got married, and gave birth to a beautiful baby. We all congratulate her on her mobility and productivity. Melissa and her new family are living in Sweden where she and her husband are pursuing post-doctoral work at the University of Lund. Graduate student Christian Reilly and his wife Kimi, not to be outdone, are expecting and the baby is to arrive at just about the same time that Christian plans to defend his thesis. Stuart and his wife Amy wish to make it clear that they are not expecting.

Stuart is, however, involved in two new lines of research. The first is being pursued with his colleague Meredith Hermosura at the University of Hawaii and concerns the regulation of toxic trace metal accumulation in neurons and other cells. It is known that trace metals, like manganese and cobalt, are both essential to cell function and toxic when present at too high a concentration. Very little is known about how cells regulate the concentrations of these essential metals. Normal cells regulate quite well, but in certain neurodegenerative diseases (including ALS and Parkinson’s) the regulation goes wrong with dire consequences. Stuart and Meredith are studying proteins involved in trace metal regulation.

In a second new area of research, Stuart is working with collaborators at Stanford and in Germany to develop sophisticated new ways to visualize neural structures and neural function using methods that combine molecular biology with the current state-of-the art 3D imaging.