News & Announcements

King 5 News visited Dr. Sam Golden’s lab in the Department of Biological Structure to interview him about his research into opioid addiction. Researchers at the Golden Lab are using machine learning to analyze videos of fentanyl-addicted mice. A grant from the National Institutes of Health is funding their research, which could lead to a better understanding of addiction in humans. A paper describing the machine learning process developed by Golden’s group, called Simple Behavioral Analysis, appeared in Nature Neuroscience…

Dr. Sofia Landi, PBIO Acting Instructor and Postdoctoral Scholar in the Buffalo Lab, has been awarded the prestigious Simons Foundation Collaboration on the Global Brain Independence Award. A major focus of Landi’s research at the Buffalo Lab is the circuits underlying the interplay between memory and perception. The award was announced this month by the Simons Foundation and was featured in post by UW Medicine Newsroom. Congratulations, Dr. Landi!

PBIO Assistant Professor Astra Bryant was featured in the latest issue of Discover Magazine. According to Bryant, a neuroscientist and parasitologist whose research focuses on the specialized behavioral and physiological responses of soil-transmitted parasitic nematodes, tapeworm larvae, most often associated with the intestinal tract, can migrate to other parts of the body, including the brain. The article was shared in the UW Today newsletter. Visit the Bryant Lab website to learn more about the fascinating world of worm research.

Astra Bryant, assistant professor of PBIO, and Anna Gillespie, assistant professor of Biological Structure, appear in the UW Insider this week. University of Washington faculty members Bryant and Gillespie took part in the Faculty Field Tour, which organized a multi-day bus tour for new faculty to explore Washington’s diverse communities and natural wonders. Read more about the tour on the UW Insider website.

Two complementary papers on the fly connectome have been published in the journal Nature on June 26th. PBIO Associate Professor John C. Tuthill and Wei-Chung Allen Lee of Harvard Medical School in Boston were the senior scientists supervising the research. Congratulations to first authors Ellen Lesser and Tony Azevedo! Read more about this research in the UW Medicine Newsroom.

Professor Emeritus Bertil Hille presented a seminar to the department on May 30th, 2024. There were dozens of attendees at Hille’s talk, which was titled “History of the Action Potential and Bioelectricity Starting in 1600.” Over 75 people joined online as well. The full seminar is available below for those who would like to watch (or rewatch) the talk:

Congratulations to Professor Emeritus Eberhard “Eb” Fetz, who was honored by the Society for the Neural Control of Movement this spring in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dr. Fetz received the 2024 Distinguished Career Award and delivered the keynote address at the NCM annual meeting. His talk was titled “On the “Neural Control of Movement.”

Chet Moritz, professor in PBIO with joint appointments in Rehabilitation Medicine and Electrical & Computer Engineering, was recently featured on the UW Medicine Newsroom website for his research into spinal cord injury rehabilitation. Moritz led a research team that published a study in Nature Medicine that described the benefits of noninvasive spinal cord stimulation devices for patients with spinal cord injuries. Mortiz was part of an international clinical trial of the device. Read more about Chet’s work: https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/device-restores-hand-function-for-some-with-spinal-injury

This May is the first-ever UW Innovation Month, featuring a full slate of programs and events that celebrate the spirit of innovation at UW. Join us at the following PBIO and CNC hosted events later this month which are featured on the Innovation Month program: May 13-14: CoNectome Annual Symposium (hosted by the Computational Neuroscience Center) May 15: Wayne E. Crill Graduate Research Lecture given by Jessica Cardin, PhD (Yale University) Don’t forget to subscribe to the PBIO Seminars calendar…

Physiology and Biophysics mourns the passing of Dr. Eric Feigl, Professor Emeritus and respected member of PBIO for over 50 years. The University of Washington recruited Dr. Feigl as an Assistant Professor in 1969. Colleagues remember him for his commitment to teaching and his love of the outdoors. Dr. Bertil Hille shared that Eric was one of the last of our center-of-excellence in traditional whole animal cardiovascular research, along with being an avid climber. Dr. George Brengelmann shared his remembrances…