Marta Zlatic, Group Leader in the LMB’s Neurobiology Division, has been elected into the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
The Academy of Medical Sciences is an independent body based in the UK. Their focus is to drive advances in the translation and implementation of research on health to reach and benefit society, recognising and representing a broad range of research fields across medical science. Fellows are elected from various disciplines, including laboratory research, clinical academic medicine, and nursing care. The Academy also recognise professions associated to medical science, such as ethics, social science and law. Fellowship elections are given for outstanding, original discovery, or sustained contributions to the advancement of medical sciences. This year, 58 people have been elected from over 360 candidates.
Marta’s research is focused on understanding how neuronal circuitry enables animals to learn and select actions, as well as investigating the structural changes in the brain that are involved in storing memories. To this end, Marta’s group recently published a complete map – or connectome – of every synaptic connection in the Drosophila larval brain. The complete connectome contained 3016 neurons and 548,000 synapses and was completed in collaboration with Albert Cardona’s group, also in the LMB’s Neurobiology Division, and Joshua T. Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University. This research offers unprecedented insight into neural architecture, and provides a new basis to guide future experimental and theoretical studies into neural circuits and brain function.
Before joining the LMB in 2019, Marta was a Group Leader at HHMI Janelia Research Campus in Virginia, USA. Here, she pioneered a powerful approach that combines connectomics with physiology and behaviour in the tractable Drosophila larva to study the circuit implementation of neural computations and discovered general principles by which brains select actions and learn. Prior to this, she received a Ph.D. in Neurobiology at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, and held research fellow positions at Trinity College, Cambridge. Her research has previously been recognised with the Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientist Prize in 2017, election to EMBO membership and the Francis Crick Medal and Lecture from the Royal Society, both in 2020.
In addition, LMB alumna Jane McKeating has also been announced as a new Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Jane was a Research Technician in the LMB’s PNAC Division between 1982-1983, and is now Professor of Molecular Virology at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford.
Further references
Marta’s group page
Jane McKeating’s page
The Academy of Medical Sciences Press Release
LMB Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences