Daniel Hummel

*Multisensory conflicts*
Life is mostly about finding a compromise between various goods and bads. To decide, organisms must evaluate different sensory inputs simultaneously. Often, a good comes with a bad and creates a conflict of interests. Would you rather have it dry but cold or warm but wet? I am wondering how such conflicts are solved in a brain. I design behavior experiments in which zebrafish larvae are exposed to such conflicts and try to replicate these experiments for whole-brain imaging, characterizing neuronal activity.

*Optogenetic control over neuronal biology*
I want to use optogenetics to induce gene expression in neurons of live larval zebrafish. I hope that this will allow us to change the activity of a single neuron of choice, with just one mouse click. Or that a specific brain region turns green fluorescent on demand. This project is about designing new ways of labelling and manipulation of neurons for two-photon microscopy.

*Professional & private background*
By training, I am a cell biologist with a focus on live cell imaging. I studied biochemistry and biophysics and obtained a PhD in molecular biology. I grew up in the rural Allgäu region in south Germany and lived in the francophone part of Switzerland for nearly 7 years. I enjoy movies and books, prefer beer over wine and I want to travel to Japan at some point in my life.