Annika Djolai

Lebenshilfe Münster is an association working with people with disabilities. The organization arranges trips and day programs for people of different ages and different kinds of disabilities. I usually work with teenagers which allows me to spend some time with wonderful, loving people and to learn with and from them.

As a tutor, I supervise medical students during the biochemical practical. This includes reviewing tests, supervising the students during experiments, discussing experimental results and reviewing reports. In 2020, the practical was adjusted to fit the Corona guidelines. The online practical included a lecture in which techniques (e.g. IHC, ELISA, FACS) and scientific background of the respective topic were discussed. Experiments were performed beforehand and the results were discussed with the students.

I wrote my bachelor thesis in Prof. Richard Baines' lab at the University of Manchester. In my project, I characterised novel firing activity in a well-characterised motoneuron in the Drosophila larval central nervous system. I characterised firing activity using patch clamp technique and observed changes in firing patterns following pharmacological treatment.

During my time in Prof. Carsten Duch's lab, I had the chance to contribute to a PhD project in which we investigated how different units of one of the Drosophila flight muscles communicate with each other. Using animals with genetical background, I recorded muscle potentials of Drosophila's DLM while the animal was in flight and gained initial experiences in intracellular recordings. This experience motivated to write my bachelor thesis in Prof. Richard Baines' lab at the University of Manchester.

I supervised the practical part of the module "Physiologie, Neurobiologie und Verhalten der Tiere" (Physiology, neurobiology and behavior) in the summer semester 2018. This included proofreading students' protocols, helping them with experiments and imparting basic neurobiological knowledge.

At Orgentec Diagnostika GmbH I gained experience in working with human samples and learned multiple techniques and test methods, including Western blotting and ELISA.

Imaging, neuroinflammatory diseases

Neurobiology, genetics