Dr Laura Swan PhD

Personal Statement

I've had a rather diverse career, taking first class Honours in an accelerated degree in Theoretical Physics at Monash University Australia, studying the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes, before changing field and studying a PhD in Neuroscience at the European Neuroscience Institute, Goettingen, Germany- a collaboration between the University of Goettingen and the Max Planck for Biophysical Chemistry. There I studied neurotransmitter receptor trafficking in the Drosophila model, concentrating on a wholly unexpected phenotype of the the Glutamate Receptor trafficking factor GRIP, and its integrative function in receptor trafficking for myogenesis.
For there, I continued my interest in membrane trafficking, spending seven years in the laboratory of Pietro De Camilli, Yale School of Medicine, where I specialized in phosphoinositide lipids (PIPs) and their role in defining organelle identity and shaping membrane deformation and traffic. This interest I have continued in my own lab- studying rare endosomal lipids and their contribution to congenital nervous system disorders and cancers.