Katja Reinhard

my research on retinal physiology

Education

11/2011 - today        PhD in Neuroscience on Retinal Processing

                                      Dr. Thomas Münch

                                      Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Tübingen, Germany 


2009 - 2011               MSc insigni cum laude in Biomedical Sciences

                                      University of Bern, Switzerland


2006 - 2009               BSc in Biomedical Sciences

                                      University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Publications

2015

Tikidji-Hamburyan A*, Reinhard K*, Seitter H, Hovhannisyan A, Procyk CA, Allen AE, Schenk M, Lucas RJ & Münch TA (2015) Retinal output changes qualitatively with every change in ambient illuminance. Nature Neuroscience 18(1):66-74 [abstract] [PubMed]

* equal contributions


2014

Reinhard K*, Tikidji-Hamburyan A*, Seitter H*, Idrees S, Mutter M, Benkner B, Münch TA (2014) Step-By-Step Instructions for Retina Recordings with Perforated Multi Electrode Arrays. PLoS ONE 9(8): e106148. [full-text]

* equal contributions


2013

Reinhard K, Rougier JS, Ogrodnik J, Abriel H (2013) Electrophysiological properties of mouse and epitope-tagged human cardiac sodium channel Nav1.5 expressed in HEK293 cells [v2; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/10d] F1000Research 2:48 [full-text]

Contributions at Conferences

1-4/7/2014              MEA Meeting 2014 – 9th International Meeting on Substrate-Integrated Microelectrode Arrays

                                    Poster: “Novel insights into visual information processing of human retina”

22-27/6/2014         2014 FASEB Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing

                                    Poster: “Insights into visual processing of human retina in-vitro”

4-8/5/2014             2014 ARVO Annual meeting

                                   Poster: “Insights into visual processing of human retina in-vitro”

                                   ARVO Travel Grant (1100 US$)

                                   Awardee for MIT Outstanding Poster Award

4-5/4/2014             Pro Retina Conference 2014

                                   Poster: “Novel insights into visual information processing of human retina”

                                  Winner of poster prize


2-4/10/2013           European Retina Meeting 2013

                                   Poster: “Studying circuit level function of human retina in vitro”

24-27/9/2013         Bernstein Conference 2013

                                   Poster: “Studying circuit level function of human retina in vitro”

21-23/6/2013        Vision Camp 2013

                                   Invited talk: “In-vitro model to study human retina function on cell and system level”

22-23/3/2013        Pro Retina Conference 2013

                                   Poster: “Extracellular Recordings from Retinal Ganglion Cells in the Human Retina”.

                                  Nominated for poster prize


10-13/7/2012        MEA Meeting 2012 – 8th International Meeting on Substrate-Integrated Microelectrode Arrays

                                  Poster: "Characterization of retinal ganglion cells in OPA-mice"

                                  Co-chairing of workshop on perforated multi-electrode arrays

Scientific & Soft Skills

Multi-electrode array recordings, visual stimulation generation, electrophysiology data analysis (e.g. cluster analysis)
Experience with HEK293 patch clamp, Western blotting, immunoprecipitations, PCR, histology (retina stainings)

Due to my work with human retina, I acquired experience with writing of ethics committee proposals, and improved my communication skills especially with clinicians and non-scientists. Since experimentation with human retina is a slow process, I was involved in several projects within the lab and together with collaborating labs. Therefore, I further developed my ability to coordinate many different projects as well as my time management skills, and I learned to recognize common aspects of various projects in terms of data analysis and scientific content/questions. I got the opportunity to present my work at many conferences and I was involved in writing project reports and applications e.g. for my PhD stipend. I thus gained considerable experience with writing of abstracts, applications, and papers. Further, I helped with supervision of undergraduate students.

Stipends, Awards, Prizes

5/2014                         Travel Grant 

                                       ARVO International Travel Grant (1100 US$)

5/2014                         Awardee 

                                       MIT Outstanding Poster Award

4/2014                         Winner Poster Prize

                                       Pro Retina Meeting 2014


11/2013                       Lush Prize 

                                       for Young Researchers, 12'500 GBP

                                       my talk at the award ceremony

                                       reports


11/2012 - 10/2015   PhD Stipend

                                       Pro Retina Foundation, Germany


7/2011 - 10/2012     PhD Stipend 

                                      Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Tübingen, Germany

3/2011                        CSL Behring Prize 

                                      for best Biomedical Sciences Master diploma 2011

Research projects

7/2010 - 1/2011      Master Thesis

                                     Generation and characterisation of differently S-tagged mouse Nav1.5

                                     Prof. Hugues Abriel

                                     DKF, University of Bern, Switzerland

5/2010                       Master Research Project II

                                    Rhythm generation in neuronal networks

                                    Prof. Jürg Streit

                                    University of Bern, Switzerland

4/2010                      Master Research Project I

                                    Channelopathies in heart and PNS

                                    Prof. Hugues Abriel

                                    DKF, University of Bern, Switzerland

8/2008 - 5/2009     Bachelor Research Project

                                    Development of M- and P-Cells in the Macaque’s Lateral Geniculate Nucleus

                                    Prof. Pierre Lavenex

                                    University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Languages

German (native), English (fluent)

French (good), Spanish (good)

Italian (basic knowledge)

Latin