Welcome to the new lab memebers
June 2024We are happy to anounce the lab is lways growing. Welcome to Luisa the ne PhD student and Peter our new official technician
Our research interests:
Behavioural assays
We develop behavioural assays to identify genetic mechanisms in health and disease
Molecular genetics
We undertake CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to generate null mutant zebrafish lines
Comparative psychology
We study endophenotypes associated with neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders
Imaging analysis
We use transgenic lines and perform staining to relate neural activity and network formation to behaviour
Latest News
Roadmap to best erlfare management: minimizing severity in our preclinical studies
June 2024Always interested in our animals welfare, members of the lab keep been updated. This time they visisted Chatterhouse campus to assist to the RoadMap to best welfare management" seminar
Work-Life balance
May 2024Congratulations for all these young and dedicated researchers finding the balance between lab and enjoying their stancy in the country
Perception, Cognition, Decision-Making meeting
May 2024Second year PhD student Shiyao, presented his work about "the protective role of acute excersice on stress induced social behaviour changes" during the meeting, creating interest about zefrafish in psychology dept
Best presentation by Adele in the PDRA symposium
May 2024Congratulations to our PDRA Adele Leggieri, who gave a fantastic talk with amazing data, easy to understand interpretation and beautiful animations; winning as the best oral presentation during the PDRA symposium
Prof. Caroline Brennan visited Queen Mary China
April 2024In the aim to expand her knowdelge about "Using zebrafish to identify genes and pathways afecting addiction related behaviour" Prof.Caroline Brennan visited Nanchang University Queen Mary.
New Interim Head of SBBS
March 2024All in the lab are glad to congratulate our beloved leader, Professor Caroline, for her new interim possition as Head of School of Biological and Behavioral Sciences. We are so proud of you
SBBS 1st Year PhD Student Talks 2024
8 March 2024This year, Roy is the new PhD student who clearly presented his project about the study of genes and impulsivity
2nd year posters, presented during SBBS Posgraduate Research Symposium
March 2024Our three 2nd year PhD students, Waqas, Shiyao and Jhosadara did an excellent job with their posters and congratulations for the latter who won the prize of the best poster presented. All of them are clear evidence of teamwork and effort.
3rd year talk during SBBS Posgraduate Research Symposium
4 March 2024Beautiful and consistent results during Xian`s presentations. Congratulations to her for giving her talk twice in a day for Psychology and Biochemiestry departments of SBBS
QMUL Night of Science and Engineering
29 February 2024Gene-ius fish was present during the night of science and engineering where we had the opportunity to do some networking in and outside QMUL
Celebrating New Year with mexican margaritas
25 January 2024With enthusiasm, we began 2024 welcoming new PhD and masters students while sadly saying goodbye to Ana who worked with us the last 6 months. This time we toasted with mexican margaritas
Christmas Celebration 2023
5 December 2023Before everyone goes to celebrate Christmas with their families, lab memebers celebrated Christmas with a secret santa. It was a cheerful night full of laughs and surprises
Zebrafish mutant line presented in P&G club
17 November 2023Brilliant presentation from Xian during the P&G club! She presented her creation of AIP loss of function zebrafish line within the failure to thrive and cardiac defects that it causes
Xian Presentation during SfE BES Conference
13 November 2023We are all proud of our excellent PhD student Xian Wang, who presented her work in the annual conference of the Society for Endocronocronology
Exploring the genetics of numerosity, from fish to man
10 September 2023As stunning as always, Prof Caroline Brennan talking around the world about the amazing model the zebrafish is for the development of human mind research
Excellent Summer Project
29 August 2023It was a pleasure to receive Peter in the lab. He developed a pharmacology summer project, which was awarded as the best presentation
Farewell Alex after her VIVA
19 July 2023We all congratulate Aleks for finalizing her PhD journey in the lab and successfully passing her VIVA. We will miss you and wish you the best in the next steps of your career
RS Summer Science Exhibition 2023 INTERVIEWS and BROADCAST
9 July 2023Now you can watch more about gene-ius fish exhibition and how zebrafish can be used to improve mental health as the deonstration of the important similarities beetween mammal and zebrafish brains
Excellent Teamwork during RS SSE 2023
5 July 2023We are very greatful to more than 10 members of the group who make this exhibition possible, fun and easy to learn for more than 10,000 people that visited us during the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2023
Getting Ready for RS SSE 2023
3 July 2023After months of planning, and a lot of hardwork; we are excitingly setting everything to give you the funniest week to learn more about zebrafish and how can be used to imporve human mental health
Marta Korbonits, Laureate Award Winner 2023
16 June 2023We happily congratulate our estimated endocrinologist colaborator; Marta, who won the Laureate Award this year at the ENDO conference
Zebrafish AIP loss of function model presented at ENDO2023 in Chicago
15 June 2023Exciting time for our PhD student Xian who flew to Chicago to present zebrafish as an excellent model to study AIP function at the ENDO 2023
Postdoctoral Research Symposium
8 June 2023Amazing talk in the PDRA Sysmposium from our posdoctoral resarcher Adele; who presented the finding of novel physiological pathways of rbfox-1 gene in mental health
Molecular Biology Update by New England Labs
5 June 2023Team of NEB visited us and gave a very useful update about the wide variety of new tools for doing sicience in a more precise and effective way
Participants Needed for Study on Working Memory & Economic Decision-making
4 May 2023Be rewarded with aprox £6 (£8/hour) and help us uncover how working memory holds and manipulates relevant information in mind while making an economic decision, for more information; contact: shiyao.zhang@qmul.ac.uk
London Next Generation Sequencing Symposium
24 May 2023Great time for members of Brennan Lab being invited to the "London Next Generation Sequencing Symposium" sponsored by New England Biolabs
Gene-ius fish: Diving into human mental health with zebrafish
8 May 2023Wait no more and visit our website! where you can see all the details regarding our participation in this year Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
Can fish count? : The neural and genetic basis of numerical abilities in fish
4 May 2023Our estimated profesor Brennan was present in 2023 FENS Regional Meeting talking about the incredible abilities in zebrafish
"Gene-ius fish" in Royal Society 2023 Summer Science Exhibition
11 April 2023We are happy to anounce our participation in the Summer Science Exhibition 2023. In the website launch this 19th of April you will be able to check all the activities and exhibitions
British Association of Psychopharmacology
14 March 2023Our estimated principal investigator and postdoctoral researcher gave an amazing talk on "The use of zebrafish in psychopharmacology research" during the BAP Certificate in Non-clinical Psychopharmacology course
SBBS 1st Year PhD Student Talks 2023
10 March 2023The first year PhD students Shiyao and Jhosadara presented their very interesting projects related to excercise for stress and appetite control in neurodegeneration respectivetely
Farewell Will
01 February 2023Our brilliant research technician Will is leaving Brennan lab. We wish you all the best for the future!
EWCN 2023 meeting
27 January 2023Caroline reconnected with Maria Elena at European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology meeting in Bressanone Brixen. She was a plenary speaker in number cognition session and together with Maria Elena spoke on Genetics of Number Cognition
Celebrating the New Year
20 January 2023We had a great time catching up and celebrating the New Year over dinner and drinks together with Busch Group
Brennan lab at FENS Forum 2022
13 July 2022Aleks and Saeedeh attended and presented their research during FENS Forum 2022 in Paris, France
Farewell
07 August 2020We said goodbye to our two brilliant post-docs, Lilah Glazer and Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini with a socially distant picnic. We are sad to see you go and wish both of you all the best for your future endeavours!
WE ARE GUEST-EDITING!
01 June 2020Professor Caroline Brennan and Dr Jose Torres-Pérez are guest-editing a special issue on “Zebrafish: A Model for the Study of Human Diseases” at Biomolecules (IF 4.694). Researchers from any discipline are invited to submit new research articles or reviews to this special issue. If you need more info, don’t hesitate to contact us! Deadline: 31 December 2020
Lockdown edition
06 April 2020We have been holding an online R course by Riva as well as functional genomics by Aleksandra and Saeedeh during the lockdown.
New article now published in eLIFE
26 March 2020Identification of slit3 as a locus affecting nicotine preference in zebrafish and human smoking behaviour
Brennan group hosted Human Frontiers Project collaborators
23-24 May 2019L to R: Scott Fraser, Caroline Brennan, Jose Torres-Perez, Riva Riley, Peter Luu, Maria Elena Miletto, Giorgio Vallortigara, Andrea Messina, Davide Potrich
Brennan group at IBANGS 2019
10-14 May 2019Caroline, Mary, Lilah and Judit attended and presented their research during the 21st Annual Meeting of the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society in Edinbrugh, Scotland.
Comparative Cognition C03 2019 meeting
9 April 2019Mary hosted a symposium sponsored by the Company of Biologists at the Comparative Cognition CO3 2019 meeting, Melbourne Florida
Register now to EdinFishTech 2019
Event dates: 28-30 August 2019Frontier Technologies in Zebrafish: single-cell transcriptomics, genome-editing, imaging, and behaviour.
Alumni Ari Sudwarts and Alistair Brock launch Nutrition-Tech Start-up
6 Sept 2018Alumni Ari Sudwarts and Alistair Brock launch Nutrition-Tech Start-up called Shoreditch-son in Okinawa, Japan.
Visit to Giorgio Vallortigara group in Italy
10 July 2018The Numerosity Group visited collaborators, Giorgio Vallortigara, Andrea Messina and Davide Potrich at the Mind Brain Institute, University of Trente, Italy. A very productive visit but with time for team building.
Our mission and vision
The need to discover and develop safe and effective new medicines is
greatest for disorders of the brain. According to the World Health
Organisation, CNS disorders will be the greatest medical need of this
Century as no CNS disorder is currently treated adequately and the
number of people in the world with CNS disease is set to increase
sharply in the decades ahead.
Compared to other therapeutic areas, it
takes longer to get a CNS drug to clinical settings, and the
probability of getting there is lower. There are a number of
contributing factors including the staggering complexity of the human
brain, which means our knowledge all CNS disorders is largely
incomplete, and the cost and difficulty in testing new compounds for
effectiveness and safety.
In order to reduce costs and facilitate development of effective therapeutics,
new means of assessing brain effects and safety of novel compounds are urgently
sought by the pharmaceutical industry. In recent years zebrafish have been
found to be a useful species in which to screen for genes and compounds
affecting human disease conditions as they share many developmental and
disease causing processes.
Zebrafish can contribute to the discovery process by helping to
identify genes and processes underlying disease conditions as well as
providing a system in which to test for drug effectiveness and safety.
Although zebrafish can not replace the use of other animal species
entirely, they provide a simple, cost effective system for first round
trials and have the potential to increase the rate at which compounds
can be brought to market.
Funding and collaboration
