Dr Odette Leiter is a postdoctoral research fellow in the research group of Dr Tara Walker, investigating systemic brain rejuvenation. She was awarded a PhD in Neuroscience in 2018 by the Technische Universität Dresden in Germany. Her research focus lies on the regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis by physical exercise, a process critically involved in learning and memory.
To support her research at the Queensland Brain Institute, Dr Odette Leiter has received two postdoctoral fellowships, a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service, followed by a Walter Benjamin Fellowship awarded by the German Research Foundation, allowing her to investigate the role of platelets in mediating neurogenesis-related learning and memory, and the capacity of platelet-released factors to restore cognitive function in ageing. More recently, Dr Leiter has been awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) to investigate the precise mechanisms through which platelets interact with adult hippocampal neural stem cells following exercise.
I received my Bachelor's in Biology (2001) from Yarmouk University in Jordan, followed by postgraduate degrees from the University of Houston in Houston-Texas (2002-2007). My studies are integrative in nature, joining the best of both the Neuroscience world and Circadian Biology (the study of biological clocks). In the laboratory of Prof. Arnold Eskin, I investigated how processes as complex as learning and memory are modulated by biological clocks i.e. the circadian (about 24 hours) system, using Aplysia californica as the experimental model. After completing my Master's in Science in 2005, my research focused on the mechanism by which biological clocks modulate learning and memory. This work was performed in the laboratories of Prof. Gregg Cahill and Prof. Greg Roman, experts in chronobiology and behavioral neuroscience, respectively. Using Zebrafish as a model system, I investigated the role of melatonin, a night-time restricted hormonal signal, in modulating long-term memory consolidation. My findings, published in Science in 2007, shows that the circadian system via the cyclic night-time confined synthesis/release of melatonin “the hormone of darkness” functions as a modulator, shaping daily variations in the efficiency by which memories are processed. After receiving my Ph.D. in 2007, I joined as a postdoctoral fellow the laboratory of the pharmacologist and melatonin researcher Prof. Margarita Dubocovich. My postdoctoral work engaged in elucidating the role of melatonin in circadian physiology and pharmacology during development and ageing in rodents (Mus musculus) and non-human primates (Macaca mulatta) at the Feinberg School of Medicine (Northwestern University-Chicago) and the State University of New York (SUNY). From 2010-2015, I held a teaching/research position in the Dr. Senckenbergische Anatomy and the Dept. of Neurology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt-Germany. During this time, I was involved in teaching gross human anatomy while continuing my endeavor in understanding the mechanistics involved in shaping memory processes (acquisition, consolidation and retrieval) by the circadian system.
I am a biologist interested in the general question of how changes in developmental processes can lead to evolutionary variation and origin of complex traits (such as neural circuits). I study development and evolution of the brain of mammals. My doctoral thesis studied brain regions involved in olfactory and pheromonal communication in mammals. I discovered several events of parallel co-variation of sensory pathways in distantly related species sharing similar ecological niches, as cases of ontogenetic and phylogenetic plasticity. Currently, I study development and evolution of neocortical circuits by following two main lines of research: one aims to determine how early neuronal activity emerges during development and help shape brain connections, and the other one aims to understand what developmental processes led to evolutionary innovations in the mammalian brain. My research combines molecular development (electroporation, CRISPR), transcriptomics, sensory manipulations, neuroanatomy mapping (MRI, stereotaxic tracer injections, confocal and image analysis), optogenetics, and in vivo calcium imaging (multiphoton and widefield) in rodent pups and marsupial joeys.
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
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Available for supervision
Dr T. Thang Vo-Doan is a Lecturer of the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Biology I, University of Freiburg, Germany (2019-2023). He was also a Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore (2016-2018). He was awarded his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, NTU in 2016. He received his M.Eng. degree in Manufacturing Engineering and B.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam in 2010 and 2008 respectively. He was awarded the prestigious Human Frontier Science Program Cross-disciplinary Fellowship (2019-2022).
He directs the UQ Biorobotics lab after joining in the University of Queensland. Current research activities of the lab focus on insect-machine hybrid robots, bio-inspired robotics, insect structures and functions, biomechanics, fast lock-on tracking, and brain imaging in untethered insects.
Dr Melanie White heads the Dynamics of Morphogenesis Lab at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), University of Queensland and is an ARC Future Fellow. She completed a PhD in Neuroscience at University College London followed by postdoctoral research at The University of Edinburgh. During this time Mel engineered viruses to modulate gene expression in the brain to investigate neuronal function and as a therapeutic approach for neurodegenerative disease. Her work was published in Neuron and PNAS, featured in Nature Reviews Neuroscience and received extensive international media coverage (including the BBC and The Guardian).
In 2012 Mel switched fields to apply quantitative imaging in developmental biology. Her work revealed key mechanisms driving the earliest morphogenetic events in mammalian embryogenesis and was published in Cell, Science, Nature Cell Biology, Developmental Cell and Nature Protocols. Her research was featured on the cover of multiple journals including Cell and she was awarded the inaugural American Society for Cell Biology Porter Prize for Research Excellence (2018).
In 2020, Mel joined the IMB where she will combine her passion for neuroscience and developmental biology to investigate the dynamics of neural tube morphogenesis.
Research overview
The brain and the spinal cord control most of the functions of the body and the mind, yet the dynamics of how they first form is poorly understood. Both structures arise from a common precursor, the neural tube, which forms very early in embryonic development. To generate the forces that sculpt and shape the neural tube, changes in cellular architecture must be tightly coordinated in space and time. These morphological rearrangements occur concurrently with biochemical signalling pathways that specify early neural cell fates.
Our research aims to understand how cellular properties and transcriptional regulators interact with mechanical forces in real time to direct vertebrate neural tube formation and neural cell fate specification. We study the dynamics of neural tube formation by applying advanced imaging technologies in transgenic avian models and human stem cell models.
