Julia’s project uses the small, but well studied brain of the roundworm C. elegans to establish a new way to find molecules acting on brain activity.

Before taking a career break to relocate and care for her two young children, she did a PhD in Barcelona, Munich and the United States and held a postdoctoral position in Vienna, gaining extensive experience in invertebrate neurobiology and neuroimaging.

She is now applying this expertise in her host lab, where she develops drug screens combining neuronal activity and large-scale behavioural data. This ideal synergy will help her retrain in coding and application of AI for state-of-the-art data analysis, as well as screening assay development and to amplify her professional network in the UK.