Contributors
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Neuroscience
McGill University
I’m a PhD candidate at McGill University in Montréal. I study how the brain is developing during adolescence and how environmental factors, such as exposure to drugs of abuse, can impact that development. Outside of the lab you can find me at the weekly trivia night I run, or curling (!!) in the winter.
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Neuroscience
LA Biomed
Born and bred in North London, I am now a Research Fellow based at LA Biomed, in affiliation with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). I completed my PhD in Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry in 2016, which focused on the potential use of gene therapy for the treatment of Batten disease, a fatal neurological paediatric disease. I am now working on stem cell gene therapy using CRISPR-Cas9 to treat Sanfilippo Syndrome. Before completing my PhD, I worked in the areas of Stroke and Huntington's disease research and have also worked in a care capacity, with people living with Autism, suicidal ideation, dementia and HIV Associated Neurocognitive Disorder.
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Neuroscience
Johns Hopkins University
I study sleep in mammals. I tend to ask the "journalism" questions of sleep as a behavior, "who, what, where, when, and why?" Evolutionarily, sleep has always seemed like an odd-ball to me, and while we are no closer to answering the "why" component, my research has started to hone in on the "who" and "when" factors, which can both provide important insight to this activity engaged in which we spend a full third of our lives.
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Neuroscience
Duke University
I'm a PhD student at Duke University, and I study what is going on in people's brains when they have depression or anxiety. I also study if there are clues in the brain about whether someone is likely to become depressed or anxious in the future. I hope to use this information to help improve our current mental health treatments and develop new treatments too.
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National Human Genome Research Institute
Prabarna Ganguly is a neuroscientist and science writer based in Washington, D.C. She completed her Ph.D. in psychology (with a focus in behavioral neuroscience) from Northeastern University in 2018. Her thesis focused on figuring out some of the microscopic ways in which the brain is altered after stressful experiences. She was especially interested in seeing how baby rats are affected after being separated from their mothers. Prabarna's research shows that such separation can cause drug addiction and anxiety in maternally separated rats during their adolescence.
Prabarna became obsessed with finding a way to synthesize her love for science and writing, and found Massive's quirky, amazingly dedicated community to be the perfect way to start this journey. Her passion lies in explaining and technical and scientific reports of significance and public value in a way that informs but most importantly, engages her audience.
Prabarna is a science writer at the National Human Genome Research Institute, one of the institutes within the National Institutes of Health.
