The beautiful Grand Galvez hotel, a fantastic conference venue
The second Cephalopod Neuroscience Conference (and the first Gordon Conference in Cephalopod Neuroscience) was held this week at the Grand Galvez Hotel in Galveston, TX. Members of the lab presented posters and talks on the research ongoing in our lab. It was also a great opportunity to reconnect with Crook Lab alumni who are now in PhD programs.
Crook Lab members past and present. Back row (L-R) Tyler Mears, Gabrielle Winters-Bostwick, Meg Klos, John Benedict, Diana Neacsu. Front row (l-R) Mox Engelman, Lindsey Chan, Robyn Crook, Abbi Koenigsmark.
Postdoctoral Fellow Gabrielle Winters Bostwick gave an invited talk on her most recent work using calcium imaging in arm nerve cord slices to elucidate neural circuits involved in sensing and moving in the arm. First year Masters students Mox Engelman and Meg Klos presented their recent work using volume EM to map the intramuscular nerve cords, and John Benedict presented a poster on mapping nociceptor and mechanosensor transcripts in squid. Second year MS students Lindsey Chan and Tyler Mears presented posters on anesthesia in squid and cuttefish, and on microCT reconstruction of the nervous system of the deep sea octopus genus Muusoctopus, respectively.
This new conference is an exciting forum for cephalopod neuroscientists and we are delighted to be part of the GRC group going forward. The next conference will be in 2028, with Crook Lab PI Robyn Crook as one fo the two co-chairs, and postdoctoral fellow Gabby Winters-Bostwick as one of the two co-chairs of the inaugural Gordon Research Seminar.