Vera Terblanche Hunnekuhl, PhD:
While studying Biology of Organisms (2003-2009; BSc., MSc.) at the University of Osnabrück and HU Berlin I developed an interest in the evolution of animal development. During my undergraduate and Master course I was involved in different research projects looking at muscle and mesodermal development of invertebrate species. In 2009 I was awarded an EU Marie Curie Early Career (PhD-) fellowship and joined the lab of Prof. Michael Akam at Cambridge University (UK). Here I worked on head- and nervous system development in the centipede Strigamia maritima, which represents the molecularly little studied myriapods. After completing my PhD (2013, Robinson College) I spent a short period at King’s College London, contributing to the generation of transgenic zebrafish lines to study neural disorders (2014/15). After a career break for childcare, I joined the University of Göttingen in 2017 where I pursue independent research projects, currently funded by a DFG project grant.Students:
Lisha Zheng (PhD): Lisha is a PhD student funded by the China Scholarship Council and co-supervised by the Bucher lab. Lisha has previously worked on neuropeptide and receptor function. Her PhD project focusses on prohormone convertases and she is developing a genetic system for conditional knockdown of gene function in the beetle nervous system.Simon Rethemeier (Doctorate): Simon studies medicine at the University Göttingen. He decided to pursue a research-based dissertation under the shared supervision of the Terblanche and Bucher labs. He dedicated his lab work to the characterization of neuroblasts that contribute to the beetle brain and with a special focus on Type II neuroblasts and intermediate progenitors. For this he used different CRISPR-imaging lines as well as combinatorial fluorescent RNA labelling methods. Simon finished the practical work in the lab and is now writing his doctoral thesis.
Julian Heitkamp (Doctorate): Julian is a student at the University medical department. He has contributed to the generation of constructs for CRISPR-Cas9 induced homology directed repair and guideRNA production. For his dissertation he will be studying some transcription factors with respect to their role in the specification of neuroendocrine cells of the central nervous system.
Previous members:
Dr. Magdalena Schacht (research assistant): After completing her PhD at Queen Mary University of London Magdalena joined the lab as a temporary research assistant. She contributed her great expertise in molecular methods and arthropod development. While working in the lab she was supporting different projects by preparing plasmids for transgenesis, dsRNA and probes, as well as by performing injections in Tribolium embryos, larvae and pupae.Lara Keweloh (BSc): Lara was a student in the Biology Bachelor program at the University of Göttingen. She worked on the production and characterization of imaging lines to visualize neuroendocrine development in the beetle. Lara is currently completing an MSc degree at the University of Heidelberg.
Sonja Fritzsche (BSc/research assistant): Sonja was a student in the lab, co-supervised with the Bucher lab. She completed her thesis characterizing newly generated Tribolium fez-imaging lines. After that, she carried on working with Vera as a research assistant on the neurosecretory pathway project. Her focus was on ovarial development in wildtype and knockdown backgrounds and this work has just been published in EvoDevo.