matej znidaric
a scientist with a flair for technology.I also enjoy travelling, sports & photography.
I intend to record and analyze position-dependent computations of neuronal populations in the mouse retina, a layered light-sensitive tissue in the eye. The retina has been so far extensively studied in terms of describing individual cell types, as well as characterizing discrete neuronal circuits. However, due to technical limitations, computation within large neuronal populations have to date not been thoroughly investigated. I intend to record, analyze and map the activity of large populations of selected types of RGCs in different locations of a mouse retina.
Prof. Dr. Andreas Hierlemann
Bio Engineering Laboratory
ETH Zurich - D-BSSE
Dr. Felix Franke
Prof. Dr. Botond Roska (IOB)
OptoBase is an online platform for molecular optogenetics. At its core is a hand-annotated and ontology-supported database that aims to cover all existing optogenetic switches and publications, which is further complemented with a collection of convenient optogenetics-related web tools. OptoBase is meant both for expert optogeneticists to easily keep track of the field, as well as for all researchers who find optogenetics inviting as a powerful tool to address their biological questions of interest. It also presents OptoBase-based analysis of the trends in molecular optogenetics.
Astrocytes, brain cells, which role was shown to include ion regulation, neurotansmitter uptake and metabolic support for neurons, are also extensively cooperating with neurons to process information (modulation of synapses). In the process are thought to be involved Ca2+waves, but neither their exact regulation & mechanism, nor thier effect on the astrocyte and its surrounding neurons is known. We are working to pinpoint the mechanism and regulation of Ca2+waves in cultured astrocyes.
Prof. Dr. Robert Zorec
Institute for Pathological Physiology
Medical Faculty, University of Ljubljana
In my master thesis I examined subnuclear foci named paraspeckles. Foci with unknown function were assembled on long non-coding RNA: NEAT1. In the master thesis I proved that morphology as well as the number of the paraspeckles changes as a response to a physiological stimulus in rat primary hippocampal cultures. Paraspeckles were visualized via fluorescent-labeled DBHS proteins and a confocal microscope and clear foci were observed in glial cells. When the cultures were stressed physiologically relevant stressors; KCl (25 mM, 1h) or TTX (1 μM, 16h), a significant increase in the number of fluorescent (GFP-PSPC1) foci was observed. Results presented may indicate an important new function of subnuclear domains named paraspeckles as mediators to a stress response.
Prof. Dr. Steven Brown
Chrnobiology and Sleep Research
Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology
In 2012, I was working with prof. dr. Daniel C. Kiper at the institute of Neuroinformatics (INI Zürich) on the topic of edge correlation in natural images. A database consisting of a few hundred images was gathered and luminescent and chromatic edges were extracted from scenes using MatLab or Adobe Photoshop. Edges were analyzed and compared and results indicated low cross-correlation between edges extracted with different programs, but on the other hand, in both programs high correlation between luminescent and chromatic edges was observed. Algorithms in Adobe Photoshop were more complex compared with Sobel operator used in MatLab and consequently more edges in the naturel scenes were marked.
Dr. Daniel C. Kiper
Institute of Neuroinformatics
University of Zurich / ETHZ
During the 6-month period (Nov. 2011 – Jun. 2012), I was working in the Steven’s Brown in the institute of Toxicology and Pharmacology in UZH/ETH Zürich. We were studying the role of NOPS family proteins, namely NONO, SFPQ and PSPC1 in the inhibitory postsynaptic gephyrin clustering. All NOPS protein and likely also the subnuclear structures, related with them - paraspeckles, were found to be important for the number and morphology of gephyrin clustering in rat hippocampal cultures.
Prof. Dr. Steven Brown
Chrnobiology and Sleep Research
Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology
Team Slovenia won on the iGEM 2010 (International Genetically Engineered Machines) at the MIT, Cambridge, Boston. In our project we build a coordinated enzymatic pathway that was aligned on the DNA molecule that acted as a scaffold. A 10 fold efficiency boost in the final product - violacein, was achieved. In the team were: Nejc Tomšič, Tjaša Stošicki, Tina Ilc, Jernej Turnšek, Tina Lebar and Matej Žnidarič. Our team of informaticians were Jure Bordon, Mattia Petroni, Rok Pustoslemške and Rok Češnovar
Prof. Dr. Roman Jerala
National Institute of Chemistry Slovenia
I was helping on the research focusing on nanoparticles. Between 2008 and 2010, I was working with Dr. Janez Valent and Dr. Damjana Drobne to study the interactions between lipid vesicles and nanoparticles.
Prof. Dr. Damjana Drobne
Biotehniška fakulteta
University of Ljubljana