Professor Bruno van Swinderen
Professor

Bruno van Swinderen

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+61 7 334 66332

Background

Professor Bruno van Swinderen received his PhD in Evolutionary and Population Biology in 1998 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His graduate work was on general anesthesia in a Caenorhabditis elegans model, applying both quantitative genetics and molecular genetic approaches. For his postdoc at The Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in San Diego, California (1999-2003), he switched to Drosophila melanogaster to develop methods of studying perception in the fruit-fly model. He ran a lab at NSI from 2003 to late 2007.

Professor van Swinderen established a new laboratory at the Queensland Brain Institute in February 2008.

Bruno van Swinderen's group use Drosophila as a genetic model system to study mechanisms of perception in the brain and are interested in three phenomena: selective attention, sleep, and general anesthesia. Their focus is on visual perception and how it is affected by these different arousal states. Their current effort is in understanding how sleep regulates selective attention and predictive processing. Toward this goal, they use various novel visual paradigms in a Drosophila molecular genetics context. The lab is also focussed on understanding presynaptic mechamisms of general anaesthesia, with a view to uncovering new strategies to improve recovery from this common medical procedure.

Availability

Professor Bruno van Swinderen is:
Available for supervision
Media expert

Fields of research

Genetics Neurosciences

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Washington University in St Louis

Research interests

  • Attention and memory

    Behavioral choices result from an ongoing interplay between attention and memory. We have developed paradigms to study visual attention and memory in Drosophila, thereby allowing us to investigate this complex problem in a powerful genetic model. Two levels of investigation are involved: behavior and brain electrophysiology. Behavioral screening methods allow us to determine visual responsiveness levels resulting from gene mutations or drug treatments, and electrophysiology in individual flies identifies brain processes affected by our manipulations. Our goal is to identify mechanisms of visual attention, and to elucidate how these processes interact with memory systems.

  • Anesthesia and sleep

    We all sleep, and many of us require anesthesia during surgery at some point in our lives. However, the function of sleep is unclear, and the mechanism of general anesthesia remains mysterious. Our insight into brain processes modulating visual perception in Drosophila is applied at an electrophysiological level towards understanding sleep and general anesthesia, when perception is lost. We approach this problem by targeting candidate molecular systems at the level of molecular lesions and pharmacology.

Search Professor Bruno van Swinderen’s works on UQ eSpace

140 works between 1995 and 2025
All (140) Journal Article (103) Book Chapter (4) Conference Publication (27) Other Outputs (5) Edited Outputs (1)

121 - 140 of 140 works

Current funding

  • 2025 - 2028
    Tracking mistakes in the fly brain: understanding consciousness from the bottom up
    Open grant
  • 2025 - 2026
    Human brain organoid models to investigate anaesthesia induction and reversal agents
    Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthestists
    Open grant
  • 2025 - 2028
    Time to wake up! Reversing a presynaptic anaesthetic mechanism
    NHMRC IDEAS Grants
    Open grant
  • 2024 - 2026
    Quiet sleep is for repair, active sleep is for learning
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant

Past funding

  • 2024
    Investigating a working anaesthesia reversal agent
    Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthestists
    Open grant
  • 2023 - 2024
    Discovering anaesthesia recovery treatments (DART): A super-resolution microscopy approach to uncovering reversal agents
    Australian & New Zealand College of Anaesthetists
    Open grant
  • 2021 - 2024
    A role for sleep in optimising attention
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2019 - 2022
    ActiveAI - active learning and selective attention for robust, transparent and efficient AI (EPSRC International Centre-to-Centre Research Collaborations application submitted by University of Sussex)
    University of Sussex
    Open grant
  • 2019 - 2022
    Bridging the gap between electrical and molecular sleep functions in the brain
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2019 - 2024
    Presynaptic control of general anaesthesia
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2018 - 2021
    Closing the loop between salience and brain activity (ARC Discovery Project administered by Flinders University)
    Flinders University
    Open grant
  • 2018
    A multifunctional platform for monitoring and manipulating neural activities with freely behaving small animals
    NHMRC Equipment Grant
    Open grant
  • 2018 - 2020
    Unveiling the origin of Munc18-1 and alpha-synuclein co-aggregation at nanoscale
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2017
    4-Dimensional multi-photon microscopy for understanding neural circuits and behaviour
    UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure
    Open grant
  • 2016
    A state-of-the-art facility for simulataneous photo-stimulation, high speed imaging and electrophysiological recording of multiple neurons in brain tissue and living organisms
    UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2019
    How the dosage of a Down syndrome candidate gene affects neural circuitry and behaviour
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2018
    Molecular mechanisms underlying recovery from general anaesthesia
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2018
    Sleep and wakefulness in the fly brain
    UQ Fellowships
    Open grant
  • 2014 - 2017
    Discovering deep sleep genes and determining their roles for preserving cognitive functions
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2014 - 2016
    Dopaminergic mechanisms of visual selective attention in the fly
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2014
    Two-photon microscopy for live and fixed imaging in model organisms and thick tissue
    UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure
    Open grant
  • 2011 - 2013
    A virtual environment for the study of multisensory learning, adaptation and control
    UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure
    Open grant
  • 2011
    An automated liquid handling platform for High-throughput Preparation of multiplexed targeted sequence capture DNA libraries for Next-Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS)
    UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure
    Open grant
  • 2011 - 2013
    Neurexin and Neuroligin: A Code for Synaptic Development
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2011 - 2014
    Perceptual suppression mechanisms in the Drosophila brain
    ARC Future Fellowships
    Open grant
  • 2010
    Next-generation DNA sequencer to accelerate discovery in molecular and cellular research programs at QBI
    UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure
    Open grant
  • 2010 - 2012
    Presynaptic mechanisms of general anaesthesia in the fly brain
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2008
    Behavioural Facility for Genetically Modified Insects
    UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure
    Open grant

Availability

Professor Bruno van Swinderen is:
Available for supervision

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Supervision history

Current supervision

Completed supervision

Enquiries

Contact Professor Bruno van Swinderen directly for media enquiries about:

  • Anaesthesia
  • Attention - selective
  • Behaviour genetics
  • Caenorhabditis elegans
  • Drosophila melanogaster
  • Evolution
  • Genetics - behavious
  • Memory - selective
  • Model organisms
  • Selective attention and memory
  • Sleep

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