Two new master students have recently joined us. Nils Gunnar Lindbo a student in biology at NMBU will work for 1 year on the effect of different light regimes including 24h light and Artificial light at night on fish welfare. Astrid Fanny Nordhei, also a biology student at NMBU, will investigate for 1 year the role of specific receptors thought to play a role in the regulation of the reproductive function in fish using the CRISPR/CAS technique
Under my supervision, Nils will have a cool project where he will determine the effect of different light regimes, including 24h light and with some light left during night, on different aspects of fish physiology including reproduction, development, stress and behaviour. To do so, Nils will use small model fish, mainly medaka but also zebrafish to some extent. He will work in close collaboration with many people at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at NMBU, including Kjetil Hodne who works on similar project but with Atlantic salmon, Marco Vindas who is an expert in brain plasticity and stress physiology, Ida Beitnes Johansen who is an expert in heart physiology, Hege Lund who is an expert in immune system, and Eirill Ager-Wick who leads the fish facility which possess a set of new tools to investigate the fish behaviour.
Astrid will also work under my supervision. She will use the CRISPER/CAS9 technique to knockout the expression of specific genes encoding receptors. She will then determine the effect of the loss of the gene on the reproductive function. She will work in collaboration with Kjetil Hodne who has developed the tools during a research stay in Japan and Guro Sandvick who works at CIGENE and is an expert in CRISPR/CAS9 technique in fish. She will also work in close collaboration with the people at the fish facility who will help in her project.
We wish them welcome to the group, and hope that they will enjoy the journey in our laboratory.
