Dr. Thomas Auer

Group leader

Laura Stebler

Lab helper

Laura joined the lab from February to July 2026 to work on her bachelor thesis on neural circuit evolution, supervised with Tom. She will come back in 2027 as a lab helper to support our ongoing projects. 

Dr. Matteo Bruzzone

Post-doctoral researcher

Matteo obtained his M.Sc. degree in Neuroscience from the University of Trieste. For his master project, he joined Angelo Bisazza’s lab at the University of Padua, where he developed novel behavioral paradigms to assess cognitive abilities in zebrafish larvae. In 2023, Matteo completed his Ph.D. at the University of Padova under the guidance of Aram Megighian and Marco Dal Maschio. During this period, he focused on visuo-motor transformation in zebrafish larvae and graph theory methods for connectomes analysis. Following his Ph.D., Matteo switched to research on Drosophila melanogaster, focusing on evidence accumulation processes. He joined the lab in November 2024 to work on the evolution of gut-brain circuits.

Christine Déforel

Lab technician

Christine obtained her CFC of laboratory technician in biology in 1987. She worked first on bacteriology at the cantonal vet laboratory of Fribourg. Then in 1988, she joined the Biochemistry Institute at the University of Fribourg, where she mainly performed histology experiments on rat brains. Afterwards, from 2011 her work consecutively focused on molecular biology in yeast with Dr. Dieter Kressler and in C. elegans with Dr. Alessandro Puoti and Chantal Wicky. She joined the lab in October 2025 and helps us a day per week to keep the lab running.