Award for former BMS PhD Student

Former BMS PhD student Dr Paloma Gonzalez-Bellido (of Dr Mikko Juusola's lab 2007-2009), has been awarded  the 2011 International Society for Neuroethology Capranica Prize in recognition of a paper judged to be most scientifically significant in the field of Neuroethology in 2010:

• Gonzalez-Bellido PT, Wardill TJ, Juusola M. (2011)
  Compound eyes and retinal information processing in miniature dipteran species match their specific ecological demands.
  Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 108:4224-9.
  http://www.pnas.org/content/108/10/4224.long

The Capranica Prize Selection Committee consisted of William Kristan, Kenneth Catania, and Christine Köppl. They reported that all of the applications were of very high quality, which speaks well for the Neuroethology research being conducted by ISN members.

Paloma T. Gonzalez-Bellido worked in the laboratory of Dr. Mikko Juusola in the Department of Biomedical Science at the University of Sheffield in the UK. She did an elegant study of the anatomy and physiology of the eyes of two flies, Drosophila melanogaster, the classic fruit fly, and Coenosia attenuata, a predatory fly that, despite being about the same size as the fruit fly, catches D. melanogaster on the wing.

On her own, Ms. Gonzalez-Bellido decided that such a predatory fly must have specializations in its visual system, selected the predatory species to use, and found a source of them (greenhouses in Spain). From detailed electron microscopy and electrophysiological studies, she found that the spatial resolution of the C. attenuata eye is greatly improved by the dense packing of narrow ommatidia, and that the temporal resolution is extremely fast in part because the rhabdomeres in the C. attenuata eye are the smallest ever reported in a flying insect, so that the phototransduction reactions can take place at a high rate.

Her thesis advisor says of her, "Paloma is a very intelligent and passionate young scientist, who has a great desire to learn. She works hard for the ambitious goals that she sets for herself..... She is quite innovative, absorbing ideas from various sources and can come up with well-thought-through solutions to the problems." The paper selected for this year's Capranica Prize certainly highlights these characateristics.

As her prize, Paloma will receive $1000 and a travel award to the 2012 International Congress of Neuroethology in Maryland, where she will be presented with a plaque.