LAUREN E. NADLER - News

LAUREN E. NADLER

International Congress of Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry

8/12/2019

I have just arrived back to Norway from an amazing week in Ottawa, Canada for the International Congress of Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry (ICCPB). The scientific program was stellar and I learned a ton from hearing about the exciting, interdisciplinary science from international researchers in the field. Many thanks to Professor Nadia Aubin-Horth (Univ Laval) for inviting me to speak in the session "Studying the evolution of host-parasite interactions: Advantages of combining mechanistics and evolutionary approaches" on my postdoctoral work examining how host physiology and behavior shift following infection by manipulative parasites. I thoroughly enjoyed all of our discussions throughout the conference. I am looking forward to the next ICCPB in 2023!

2019 Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference

7/6/2019

Many thanks to the organizers of the annual Society for Experimental Biology conference for putting together another amazing meeting in Seville, Spain. It was great to catch up with old friends, hear about all of the amazing new science that everyone is doing, and present some of my brand new research looking at the connections linking energy metabolism, brain serotonergic signaling, and parasite infection/exposure history. I can´t wait for Prague 2020! If you are working on parasites, disease, or immunity, please consider joining us at the 2020 SEB meeting where Sandra Binning (Univ of Montreal) and I are organizing a session titled "Parasites, disease and host immunity: Towards a mechanistic understanding of infection-induced phenotypes".

Photos by Simon Callaghan

Department seminar talks in Florida!

4/20/2019

I had a wonderful time this week visiting the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) at the University of Miami, and the Marine Sciences Program at Florida International University. Everyone was really welcoming and I had a great time geeking out on everyone´s cutting edge science as well as presenting my own work. Many thanks to my hosts Prof Nikki Traylor-Knowles (RSMAS) and Prof Alastair Harborne (FIU). Also, thanks to Javier del Campo for snapping this photo of me during my talk at RSMAS!

Second meeting of the Academic Writing Club!

4/12/2019

Many thanks to Michael Frisk from the University of Oslo for coming speaking at the second session of the NMBU Academic Writing Club for research students. He gave heaps of super handy tips and tricks for making effective figures for publication.

Seminar at University of Oslo!

4/11/2019

Many thanks to Sjannie Lefevre for inviting me to speak in the University of Oslo seminar series today, where I talked about my work on how manipulative parasites alter the behavior and physiology of their intermediate and final hosts.

Shaun Killen visiting!

3/29/2019

Many thanks to Shaun Killen for coming to Oslo for a productive visit full of paper writing/idea generating and one awesome talk at the University of Oslo on social behavior. I first met Shaun almost 10 years ago as a Masters student at the University of Glasgow. It´s great to still be working together all of these years later!

First meeting of the Academic Writing Club for graduate students!

3/15/2019

Our first meeting of the NMBU Academic Writing Club for graduate students was a success! I am organizing this new initiative on campus to provide additional opportunities for graduate students to learn tips and tricks for improve success in scientific writing. I am bringing in a new speaker each month to speak on a different topic related to academic writing and facilitating weekly peer editing among students. So far, the students are really enthusiastic and excited about the club! Many thanks to Hedvig from the Writing Center for kicking things with off with tips for making an outline before writing. Looking forward to next month´s talk on making effective figures for publication!

First round of HPLC in the bag!

3/13/2019

My first round of brain parts are finished running through the HPLC! Yippee! This work will allow us to better understand how infection with a brain infecting microsporidian parasite alters neurotransmitter activity, particularly the monoamines dopamine and serotonin.

SICB conference

1/5/2019

I am having an awesome time at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting in Tampa, Florida. In addition to loving getting in some warmth and sunshine in the middle of Norwegian winter, I got some great feedback on my study looking at the costs of infection in Euha final hosts and have met some fantastic scientists that study similar systems and processes. What a great way to kick off 2019!

Another parasite study in the bag!

12/12/2018

I am excited to have completed my first experiment of my postdoc here in Norway, working on a new host-parasite system: the zebrafish and its brain-infecting parasite Pseudoloma neurophilia. There is still so much that we don´t know about these nasty microsporidians and how they impact the physiology and behavior of their hosts. Through this study, we will learn about how the parasite alters their hosts metabolism, following acute and long term infection. We will then link this data to each individual´s neurochemistry in their brain (looking particularly at dopamine and serotonin). There is still a fair bit of post-experiment tissue and data analyses to do but we are looking forward to the results!