The Team
Robert Hindges
Professor & Principle Investigator
Managing Director Centre for Developmental Neurobiology
Professor Hindges is the Head of the Neural Connectivity and Visual Function Lab and Managing Director of the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. He is also the Academic Director of the Genome Editing and Embryology Core Facility (GEEC).
Robert graduated from the University of Zürich, Switzerland with a PhD in Molecular Biology. He then joined as a postdoc the Lab of Prof. Dennis O'Leary at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, where he identified some of the molecular mechanisms underlying visual map formation in the brain, and retinal arealisation important for binocular vision. Some of his findings are now described in general neuroscience text books. In 2006 Robert started his own research group as Lecturer at King's College London focusing further on the establishment of functional brain circuits, before becoming Full Professor in 2020. Recently, his research group has concentrated on using zebrafish for the validation of psychiatric disease genes and investigating synapse formation and brain plasticity.
Prof Hindges is currently member of the grant assessment panels for the BBSRC and the Swiss 3RCC
Jacqueline Chalakova
Postdoc
Jacqui received her Masters and PhD from the University of Sheffield using zebrafish to model human CNS infections. Her current project focuses on plasticity of the zebrafish visual system during development.
Caitlin Houseago
PhD Student
Caitlin received her BSc in Neurosciences in 2022 and her Master's Degree in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2023, both from King's College London. She joined the lab in 2023, funded by a 4-year NC3Rs studentship, and works on the validation of risk genes associated with Major Depressive Disorder using zebrafish
Prathigna Thambi Jaishankar
Research Assistant
Prathigna received her Master's Degree in Biomedical and Molecular Sciences in 2023 from King's College London. She now rejoined the lab, funded through a BBSRC Pioneer Award, to explore allele-specific expression in zebrafish.
Davide Marchi
Postdoc
Davide received his Master degree from the University of Pavia, Italy before completing his PhD using advanced genome editing in zebrafish at the University of Sheffield. He now focuses on the morphological changes of retinal neurons during developmental plasticity and labelling synaptic molecules in vivo during development.
Emily Read
emily.1.read@kcl.ac.uk
PhD Student
Emily completed her Bachelor Degree and her Master's in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. She joined the lab in 2022 and works on the behavioural assessment of zebrafish models of schizophrenia. Emily is recipient of PhD Studentship of the MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Phoebe Reynolds
phoebe.reynolds@kcl.ac.uk
PhD Student
Phoebe completed her BA in Human Sciences at the University of Oxford before joining the lab as part of the KCL MRC Doctoral Training Partnership. Her PhD project focuses on plasticity of the visual system during development.
Ellen Spackman
Ellen Spackman
Elle did her BSc in Biochemistry with Medical Biochemistry and her Master's Degree in Biochemical Neuroscience, both at the University of Bristol. She joined our group as a recipient of a MRC-Doctoral Training Program Fellowship. Her PhD project focuses on the relation between aggression and Autism using a combination of zebrafish and mouse models. (co-supervision with Dr. Marija-Magdalena Petrinovic)
Rui Wang
PhD Student
Rui completed her MSc in Biomedical & Molecular Sciences Research at King’s College London before starting her PhD project under joint supervision with Prof Christer Hogstrand and Prof Robert Hindges. The aim of her PhD is to discover the role of the zinc transporter Zip9 in zebrafish
Zexin Zhao
PhD Student
Zexin completed his MRes in Biomedical and Molecular Sciences Research at King's College London. His project focuses on the role of Teneurin-4 in synapse formation. Zen is a recipient of a PhD scholarship from the China Scholarship Council.
Alumni
Paride Antinucci
PhD Student
Function and Assembly of Teneurin-3-positive Retinal Circuits
Nadine Brassel
Research Technician
Structural and functional analysis of zebrafish visual circuits specified by teneurin-3
Mario Bevilaqua
Postdoc
Role of Odz3 in the development of the central nervous system
Angela Cheung
Post Doc
Defining the molecular diversity of specific synaptic interactions
Relating Structure to Function: Development of dendritic arborisations underlying orientation selectivity in the vertebrate visual system
Using zebrafish to uncover the genetic and neural basis of aggression in autism
Sara De Leo
Research Technician
Léa Darnet
Postdoc
Xhulijana Durmishi
Research Technician
Jade Lau
Research Technician
Relating Structure to Function: Development of dendritic arborisations underlying orientation selectivity in the vertebrate visual system
Ankur Perry
PhD Student
Influence of Retinal Cell Density on Structural and Functional Properties of the Visual Topographic Map in Mammals
Rita Pinter
Research Technician
Nicola Maiorano
Postdoc
Role of microRNAs in eye development and axon pathfinding decisions
Clinton Monfries
Research Technician
Zinc finger nuclease-induced homologous recombination in zebrafish
Establishing the functional circuitry in the vertebrate visual system
Greta Schachermayer
PhD Student
Teneurins in vertebrate synapse formation: Investigating subcellular localisation and synaptogenic properties of Teneurins
Olivia Simmonds
PhD Student
A Zebrafish Reverse Genetic Approach to Validate Candidate Risk Genes for Major Depressive Disorder
Andy Symonds
Postdoc
Oniz Suleyman
Research Technician
Mechanisms of Visual Circuit Assembly in Zebrafish
Structural and functional analysis of zebrafish visual circuits specified by teneurin-3
Zinc finger nuclease-induced homologous recombination in zebrafish
Andy Szydlo Shein
PhD Student
Establishing the functional circuitry in the vertebrate visual system
Katherine Trevers
Post Doc
Student Alumni
PhD Rotations: Megan Edwards, Emily Reid, Phoebe Whitehead, Sally Horton, Olivia Simmons, Amy Shakeshaft, Risto Jamul, Victoria Gonzales, James Pegge, Jana Mukanowa, Markus Leiwe
MSci/MSc/MRes: Evgeniya Novikova, Timothy Guanci, Dairu Meng, Jieren Bornia, Prathigna Thanbi Jaishankar, Zirui Cao, Zhao Zexin, Anna Tkachenko, Sara DeLeo, Zhu Jiang, Rachita Taneja, Luxi Ban, Natalia Jaroszynska, Mark Mace, Jakub Czacharowski, Aliana Aguila, Andrea Szydlo, Sadie Solagnier, Maxim Morrice, Angela Caipa, Rajinthan Rasia, Yuk Ting Chan, Lucia deAndres, Manal Adams, Denise van Nieuwenhuize, Marta Reyes Corral, Megane Missaire, Vaia Kloukina, Magdalini Kiziridou, Paride Antinucci, Catarina Matos de Silva, Marine Laporte, Sinan Muldur, Michelle Savioz, Dale Bryant
BSc: Shazna Mohamed Zain, Sophie Pocklington, Kyl-Linn Liew, Jingxu Wu, Rhiannon Morgan, Keenuch Thapa, Gabriella Silvestre Lloyd, Urja Patel, Caitlin Houseago, Aris Nezai, Aude Biehler, Olivia Woods-Smeeth, Sofia Malik, Fatemah Kassamali, Amber Wallis, Stephanie Maury, Lea Ganeswaran, Benjamin Tagg, Ekatherina Zorova, Anna Yakovleva, Lucy Goodwill, Alexander Hinton, Zainab Ahdash, Renata Costa, Alexander Phillips, Dale Bryant, Yiannis Christodoulides, Oluwadamilola Soile, Yojee Lee
Internship, Summer placements: Joyce Lam, Ashna Bhavnagarwalla, Wing Gee Shum, Giorgia Ughetto, Rosa Serrano, Sara Singh, Phoebe Whitehead, Sara De Leo, Melissa Emami, Ayah Elhanafi, Danyia Bernardo, Fatumah Jama, Tony To, Abdulahi Mohammoud, Alice Cummings, Shafina Khatun, Rebecca DeMello, Rosalba Sortino, Deidre Easton, Parwez Pakar
