Our team
Vincent Croset (PI)
I grew up in Switzerland and studied biology and genomics at the University of Lausanne. During my PhD, I worked in the group of Richard Benton where I resolved the evolutionary history of a novel family of invertebrate chemosensory receptors, and addressed their function in amino-acid sensing. After graduating in 2013, I spent 7 years as a postdoc in the lab of Scott Waddell at the Centre for Neuronal Circuits and Behaviour at the University of Oxford. There, I pioneered single-cell sequencing in the Drosophila nervous system and used these methods to address transcriptional correlates of water deprivation, discovering a novel drinking gating mechanism involving glial signaling. I moved to Durham University to set up the lab in 2020.
ORCID / Durham University webpage
Sophie Waldron (Post Doc)
I am interested in using Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the molecular and genetic underpinnings of nutrient balancing and food choice. I completed my undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, before transitioning towards biological and genetic neuroscience in my PhD. For this I received a Wellcome Trust studentship funding to phenotype a rodent model of psychiatric risk through copy number variation at Cardiff University, supervised by Dominic Dwyer and Jeremy Hall. I joined the Croset lab in 2022 where I have been purifying and sequencing cells from neuronal subtypes involved in reward processing and feeding behaviour. When not in the lab you can find me cooking, hiking, and petting every cat I see.
James Evans (PhD student)
My journey into biology started by studying my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science at the University of Kent. This included a year working at Cardiff University in the lab of Sonia López de Quinto investigating translational regulation in the ovary of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. I then stayed at Kent to work in the lab of Jenny Tullet for my MRes using the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate transcriptional regulation of eating behaviour. I then joined the Croset lab for my PhD and went back to using fruit flies, but to now study the role of activity-regulated genes required for long-term memory.
Cameron Westland (PhD student – starting January 2025)
Driven by an instinctive curiosity in the natural world, I first studied Zoology at the University of Aberdeen in north-east Scotland where I developed a particular interest in evolution and genetics. To explore these interests further, I relocated to Scotland’s capital to study my MSc in Evolutionary Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, where my thesis research involved investigating the genomic correlates of recombination rate in Lepidoptera using WGS data. I am largely interested in understanding the genetic and molecular bases of complex traits, and my PhD research will involve exploring how the dopamine transporter influences learning and forgetting behaviour in Drosophila, alongside the molecular consequences of dopamine transport dysregulation.
Alasdair Boeddinghaus (MRes student)
I completed my undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at Durham, and it was then that I got the opportunity to work in the Croset lab for a research project module. I enjoyed it so much that I applied to stay on in Durham and do my MRes here. I am interested in the neurogenetics of learning and memory, and my MRes project aims to develop a method to identify and isolate specific engram cells, which are responsible for encoding long-term memories, and to transcriptionally analyse them once they have been isolated from the rest of the fly brain.
Emily Bambrough (MRes student)
Karina Piotrowska (MSci student)
I am Karina, currently studying Biology and Chemistry here at Durham. I enjoy using tools from biochemistry and genetics to answer pertinent questions in molecular neuroscience. To this end, my MSci project aims to decipher the functional relevance of post-synaptic dopamine transport in the fly brain by directly tracking dopamine using genetically-encoded fluorescent sensors.
Jaryd Mercer (3rd year student)
Helen Siddle (Technician)
I graduated from Newcastle University in 2019 after completing my BSc (Hons) in Animal Science and MRes in Animal Behaviour. My Master’s research investigated whether neuroimaging and recording changes in the mass of grey matter within the hippocampus can assess the effect of cumulative experience in farm animals. I have spent much of my career working with animals, including horses at Beamish Museum, and cats and dogs in rescue centres. I joined Durham University in 2021 before moving to my current role later that year as an Intermediate (Invertebrate) technician. I am working across multiple insect groups within the bioscience department.
