will take place on Tuesday, November 27, 2018 from 17:15 to 18:15 hours in CBBM, Ground Floor, B1/B2.
Host: Prof. Dr. Henrik Oster
Institute of Neurobiology
University of Lübeck
Abstract
Animals need to balance competitive behaviours to keep internal homeostasis and to reproduce. The underlying mechanisms are complex, but typically involve neuroendocrine signalling. Using the fruit fly Drosophila , we are especially interested in the role of peptides in modulating the daily pattern of feeding-related locomotor activity. In this lecture, I will give a brief overview of our current understanding of how feeding-related locomotor activity is regulated in the fruit fly, and then focus on the role and mechanisms of adipokinetic hormone (a glucagon analog) and allatostatin A signalling (homolog to galanin signalling) in balancing feeding, locomotor activity and sleep.
Biosketch
Christian Wegener studied Biology at the Universities of Konstanz and Jena. In 2000, he received his PhD with honours, working at the Institute of General Zoology and Animal Physiology in Jena. After three years postdoctoral training within a Human Frontiers Science project at the Zoological Department of Stockholm's University, he started an independent Emmy-Noether-junior research group at the Department of Animal Physiology-Neurobiology, University of Marburg. He was also an EMBO short-term fellow at the Institutive of Integrative Biology at Leeds University. Since 2011 he is Professor of Neurogenetics at the Biocenter, University of Würzburg. He currently is speaker of the section Behavioural Neuroscience of the German Neuroscience Society.
His research focusses on neuropeptide biology in insects, mainly the genetic model Drosophila. Using peptidomic techniques, his group has significantly contributed to chemically characterise insect neuropeptide hormones and brain-gut peptides and their processing.
The major aim of his research is to understand how the mini-brain of insects and their circadian clocks regulate the activity of peptidergic neurons and the release of peptide hormones to time locomotor behaviour, feeding and eclosion. He is also interested in peptidergic gut-to-brain signalling and the evolution of neuropeptide signalling.
