The LMB is delighted to announce the appointment of Joergen Kornfeld as a new Group Leader in our Neurobiology Division where he will investigate the connectomics of learned behaviour.
There are many unanswered questions surrounding the working of the brain, including how it stores learned behaviours in its neuronal networks and retrieves them when performing these behaviours. The structure of all the brain’s neurons and the synaptic connections between them together form the connectome; these connections are proposed to form the physical basis of memory. Joergen has been a serial innovator in the technology for acquiring connectomes. His appointment will help ensure the Neurobiology Division remains at the forefront of connectomics, a core area of expansion for the LMB.
Joergen’s group will investigate how animals store and access learned behaviours using the zebra finch as his main model. These birds can perform songs as an adult that they have practiced and learnt in infancy, much like humans learn language. Joergen will use high-throughput 3D electron microscopy to map the finch’s brain circuits at high enough resolution to investigate the synaptic connections between neurons. As this method produces a colossal volume of data which would be impossible to review manually, his group will develop and apply deep learning techniques to build the connectomic map. Ultimately, Joergen hopes to establish how learned behaviour is encoded in synaptic wiring patterns and create a link between the specific behaviour of an individual and the connectome it is based on.
Joergen commented, “I am very much looking forward to joining the LMB as a Group Leader and feel honoured to be working on connectomics at its birthplace.”
Joergen received a B.Sc. in Molecular Cell Biology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, followed by an M.Sc. in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. After obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg, where he worked with Winfried Denk at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Joergen completed a postdoctoral position with Michale Fee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. In 2021, he established his research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Germany.