DC 8: Vishrutha Prakash
Vishrutha Prakash (India) holds a Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering and built international research experience in the UK in 2022 as part of her summer semester abroad, working on biopolymers for wound healing applications. This experience sparked a deeper interest in tissue repair and regenerative medicine, motivating her to pursue a Master’s in Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Sheffield. There, she focused on zebrafish tail development and regeneration at the Roehl Lab, studying WNT signaling in both processes and comparing gene expression patterns of biomarkers involved in WNT following tail and fin fold amputation. She perfected zebrafish handling protocols, whole-mount in situ hybridization, immunofluorescence, and advanced microscopy, analyzing morphological defects and molecular shifts upon WNT inhibition using small molecule inhibitors.
Following her MSc degree, Vishrutha joined the University of Wolverhampton as a Research Assistant, working on an Innovate UK project with industrial partners to develop value-added materials from biowaste and engaged in biopolymers research, acquiring skills in material science and engineering. She is now beginning her PhD at the Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology at IMol in Warsaw, under the MENTOR doctoral network and supervised by Dr Justyna Zmorzyńska.
Planned secondments: 3 months at UniFR for proteomics analysis of TSC mutant zebrafish brains. 3 months at Topadur for testing the in vivo activity of putative mTOR inhibitors.
University of Fribourg
3 monthsFribourg, Switzerland
Topadur
3 monthsSchlieren, Switzerland
My research project
Using zebrafish as an animal model, the PhD candidate will test various compounds and potentially epistatic genes for modification of neuropsychiatric-like behavioral phenotypes in the Tsc2 mutant zebrafish (automated behavioral analysis using Zebrabox with automated data analysis). The compounds will be selected based on our previously obtained RNAseq data from brain tissue. In addition, compounds acting as new pharmacological inhibitors (University of Tübingen- M. Gehringer and the University of Basel – M. Wymann) or interfering with movel molecular targets (Université Paris-Cité – M.Pende, University Clinic of Essen – K. Thedieck) will also be tested. For compounds that modify behaviors, the brain morphology will be assessed by whole- mount immunofluorescence of brain markers in the intact brains (single-cell-resolution whole brain imaging using light-sheet microscopy) and then the activity of specific regions and the connectivity development will be examined using transgenic lines with Ca-sensitive fluorescent probe GcaMP or fluorescently-labelled specific neuronal populations, respectively (live time-lapse imaging of connectivity development using light-sheet microscopy).
PhD enrolment : 
DC 7: Lukas Vaišvilas