OWEN MARSHALL - Key Persons
Ciarán is a PhD student interested in using mathematical models to describe biological systems. Ciarán's first degree was a Bachelor of Engineering, majoring in Computer Systems. In the years before joining the Marshall lab, he has worked as a professional programmer/software developer within the Faculty of Health at the University of Tasmania. Ciarán's PhD has had some unfortunate plot twists and odd data distributions, but he's almost finished now (and we suspect is very much looking forward to not thinking about the methylation profile of DamID for a while : )
Caroline received her PhD from Kansas State University, USA, studying the role of post-translational modifications of a family of scaffolding transmembrane proteins called tetraspanins. Caroline switched to Drosophila neurobiology for her first postdoc at RIKEN, Japan, where she investigated the gene network regulating class specification in sensory neurons. Thrilled with the idea of even more systems biology, Caroline joined us for a second postdoc investigating Alzheimer's disease and the epigenetic processes underlying memory formation in the fly brain. The course of her research may not have always run exactly smooth - but her efforts pushing the envelope of TaDa have been heroic, and we think the results are about to speak for themselves.
Owen undertook his PhD and first postdoc in Prof. Andy Choo's group at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, working on the structure of centromeric chromatin and how it changes during cancer progression. He moved to the UK in 2012 for further postdoctoral work in Prof. Andrea Brand's group at the University of Cambridge, where he helped develop the Targeted DamID cell-type-specific profiling system, and applied this to understanding the epigenetics of neural development. Owen returned to Australia in 2016 to lead a research group at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research in Hobart, Tasmania, studying the role of epigenetics and transcription factors in brain development and disease.
Jake did Honours with us in 2020, storming through a full run of chromatin TaDa in the three weeks before covid hit, and then spending most of the year frustratedly waiting to be allowed to do lab work again. Despite being locked out of the lab for much of the year (or maybe because of it?) he went straight into a PhD with us, looking at development and disease in that "other cell type" in the brain, glia. Jake is blessed with eternal optimism, and neither the second year of his PhD, nor a large genetic screen (nor even being unfortunately left off the website for over a year) has yet managed to break him. We hope it never does : )
John completed his Honours degree (first class) in the Marshall lab, working on the regulation of the transcription factor Worniu in neural stem cells. John took a break to work in the ski fields for a season, before deciding that crossing flies was even more exciting than snow boarding (it's a close call - but yes, we agree, John). Whether it's making new transgenics or dissecting adult fly brains like most of us shell peas, John has golden hands that rarely if ever fail. We're very happy to have him back with us : )