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Ulrike A. Heberlein Awards and other professional activities: 1999 McKnight Investigator Award 1999 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECA) 1991-1992 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship 1988-1991 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Jane Coffin Child Memorial Fund for Medical Research |
Reza Azanchi In addition to being the lab's manager, I'm worrking on a project looking at oviposition preference for ethanol . Long-standing literature shows Drosophila melanogaster show preference for egg-laying on an ethanol containing substrate. I'm working on understanding how this oviposition preference relates to other alcohol induced behaviors. Specifically, I am looking at whether flies that show ovipostion preference for food containing ethanol also prefer to move towards, eat and spend their time on food containing ethanol. In additon I'm looking at whether previous exposure to ethanol, as an adult, affects this preference. I'm hoping to isolate new genes that affect preference for these behaviors on an ethanol-containing substrate. |
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Ammon Corl I'm interested in identifying and characterizing genes and pathways regulating behavioral responses to ethanol in Drosophila melanogaster. One component of my thesis project in the Heberlein lab has been to elucidate the role of the insulin signaling pathway in mediating ethanol sensitivity in Drosophila. In addition, I have been involved in a large scale forward genetic screen to identify novel genes that regulate the ethanol induced locomotor behavior of Drosophila. |
Anita Devineni |
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Mark Eddison An understanding of the molecular and cellular adaptations that accompany neural plasticity in learning and memory can provide important clues to the nature of neural changes that occur in drug addiction. Perhaps one of the simplest forms of learning and memory is habituation. Before joining the lab, Drs. Cho and Wolf have previously shown that Drosophila habituate to successive pulses of ethanol vapor, and have invented means to do a large-scale screen for habituation mutants. Alongside William Cho, I have conducted the first large scale screen to look for novel genes that regulate habituation in Drosophila, in the hope that this will provide fresh insight into the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the synaptic changes that occur during habituation. |
Rachael French Ethanol is highly toxic, in neurons as well as in non-neuronal cell types. As many as 10% of chronic alcoholics develop cognitive and neurodegenerative disorders. In addition to the neurodegenerative effects of chronic ethanol abuse, acute ethanol exposure is known to be neurotoxic. Two days of acute ethanol exposure is sufficient to cause olfactory receptor neuron (ORN) cell death in rats, followed by retrograde degeneration of regions of the hippocampus involved in olfactory memory. The mechanisms underlying this effect remain unclear. I am studying the neurotoxic effects of acute exposure to ethanol in the Drosophila olfactory system. I have found that a single intoxicating exposure to ethanol causes olfactory neuron cell death, blackening of the third antennal segment and loss of olfaction. Preliminary data also indicate that the cell death induced by exposure to ethanol is mediated by apoptosis in both ORNs and glia. At present, I am concluding a screen for mutations that result in altered olfactory sensitivity to ethanol exposure. The ease with which this phenotype can be generated and scored, combined with the powerful genetic tools available for analysis in Drosophila, make the fly antenna an ideal model system to study the acute neurotoxic effects of ethanol. |
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Ryan Joseph |
Karla Kaun Current work on genetic model organisms such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, has advanced our understanding the genetic, molecular, and neurochemical mechanisms underlying components of addiction such as drug tolerance, sedation, and habituation. However, an assay encompassing behavioral addiction defined as compulsive drug use despite negative consequences has yet to be established. The goal of my project is to design a paradigm to measure ethanol addiction using conditioned preference for an odor associated with ethanol in D. melanogaster and to use this assay to understand the mechanisms underlying the motivational and addictive properties of ethanol. I’m using the genetic tools available in Drosophila to (1) understand the neuroanatomical and neurochemical pathways underlying addiction, (2) decipher which molecular pathways underlying learning and memory also play a role in ethanol addiction, and (3) find and characterize a novel gene important in mediating addiction by screening through P-element mutants.
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Ian King Role of MAP kinase pathways in response to ethanol: The Heberlein lab has identified a mutation in a Ste-20 family serine threonine kinase that reduces hyperactivity in response to ethanol. I am characterizing the molecular and behavioral phenotypes of this mutant. I'm also looking at possible links between stress-induced MAPK pathways and ethanol response, as Ste-20 family members can be involved in stress response pathways.
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Rolando Mancilla Here's a summary of my work: |
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Kimberly McClure |
Galit Ophir |
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| Jeanette Wong Assistant Administrative Analyst Email: jeanette.wong@ucsf.edu Hometown: San Francisco, California |
Yoko Nishitani |
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