About us

Who we are

We are a team of scientists around the DFG Emmy Noether Group Leader Gerit Linneweber. We aim to understand the origins of individual variation using an invertebrate model organism. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

Our lab was founded nearly two years ago with the help of the generous funding of the DFG Emmy Noether Programme. Since then, we have continuously grown and strived to become one of the leading laboratories in the world investigating individual behavioral variability using invertebrate model organisms.

We have now expanded the scope of our work toward numerous visual and non-visual behaviors and circuit-wide methods. Soon we plan to establish physiological approaches to investigate variability in brain computations.

Emmy Noether Group Leader Dr. Gerit Linneweber

Gerit received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, where he worked under the supervision of Irene Miguel-Aliaga on interactions between the nervous and digestive systems. Next, he moved to Belgium to work with Bassem Hassan on the developmental origins of behavioral individuality. An EMBO and Marie Curie Fellowship supported Gerit for this work. Gerit moved to Berlin and became a DFG Emmy Noether Group leader in 2021.

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Administration Ute Gebhardt

Administrative Associate for Prof. Hiesinger. Ute guides us through all administrative issues at FU Berlin.
phone: +49 30 838 55917

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Technical Assistance Jana Balke

Jana joined the lab in September 2021 as a technical assistance.

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Postdoc Thomas Mathejczyk

Thomas joined the lab in May 2021.

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PhD Student Muhammad Ali Haider

Muhammad joined the lab in March 2022

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PhD Student Mohammad Reslan

Mohammad will join the lab in December 2022

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Preferred Model System Drosophila

Our model system of choice is the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster. Drosophila is a commonly used model organism in genetics and biological research. It has a small genome size, a short generation time, and is dead easy to culture, making it a popular choice for genetic and neurodevelopmental studies. Additionally, many of the genetic and molecular mechanisms that control the development and physiology of fruit flies are similar to those in higher organisms, including humans, making it a valuable model for understanding human biology and disease.

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