Greetings from Rennes, in Brittany. I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to represent the BSDB postdoctoral community. I am a Developmental Neurobiologist now in my second postdoctoral fellowship working with Valérie Dupé at the Institute of Genetics and Development in Rennes, France. Having completed my Ph.D. at the University of Portsmouth with Frank Schubert, I moved to my first postdoc at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis with Xinwei Cao. I have worked on brain development projects to understand neurogenesis and axon growth, with the focus of my current research on the Notch/proneural network. Using the chick and mouse model organisms, I have identified novel proneural target genes that are expressed throughout neural cells in the developing embryo. Currently, I am investigating the regulation of these target genes by proneural transcription factors.

To my fellow postdocs, please do not hesitate to contact me with any suggestions or comments. I will endeavour to address them with the committee. I encourage you all to invite your colleagues to join the BSDB, follow ‘The Node’ on Twitter or Facebook and check the website regularly for many interesting posts and discussions. I look forward to hearing from you and meeting many of you at the BSDB meetings.

Nominations are invited for the 2015 Beddington Medal for the best graduating PhD student in the field of Developmental Biology.

• The eligibility period covers PhD dissertations submitted anytime during 2014.
• The closing date for nominations this year is Wednesday 14th January, 2015.

Before submitting any nomination, please read further details here.