Dr Joe Yip is looking forward to giving the award lecture at Queenstown Research Week for a prize he won last year.
Each year, the New Zealand Society of Endocrinology recognises emerging researchers with an award. In 2021 Joe was recipient of this prize but, due to Covid-19 cancellations, his award lecture had to be postponed by one year.
The lecture, to be given at the Medical Sciences Congress at Queenstown Research Week at the end of the month and early September, will showcase Joe's research on dopamine neurons in the brain which control the release of the 'milk hormone' prolactin during motherhood.
His main findings in the laboratory of Associate Professor Stephen Bunn show that these neurons undergo remarkable changes around the time of birth, essentially changing their identity to a different neuronal cell type. At the lecture Joe will explain why this might be the case and how he will proceed with his research to understand these neurons even better.