Like every year, the 2021 CNE PhD Prize was fought out with some really high calibre science presentations and we are delighted to announce that this year's winner is Aisha Sati from the Campbell group.
Aisha's work aims at finding out the reasons for certain excess neuronal wiring in the brains of mice in a model of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). PCOS is a medical condition which is the primary cause of infertility in women worldwide.
Her findings indicate that microglia, a certain type of 'immune cell of the brain', are less active in removing synapses between neurons in the brain in a region which is known to regulate sex hormone release and fertility. This could explain why PCOS is often accompanied by an excess release of ovary-regulating hormones from the brain.
Aisha's success with the PhD Prize comes only weeks after being awarded the Early Career Investigator Prize by the Androgen Excess & PCOS Society.
Each year at the same event as our CNE PhD Prize competition, the Centre for Neuroendocrinology invites an international expert in the field of neuroscience/neuroendocrinology to give the annual CNE Lecture. This year's CNE Lecturer was Prof Michellle Glass from the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology at the University of Otago and she presented her work on synthetic cannabinoids and G-protein coupled receptors.