Ruth Styfhals is fascinated by the evolutionary development of neurons and has chosen to study the marine invertebrate Ctenophora, which with sponges are amongst the earliest animals.
“Sponges do not have neurons, but Ctenophores do, so they are an interesting species to study the question of how neurons arose during evolution,” she says. “I started studying octopus’ brains and have moved down the tree of life to figure out where neurons originated.”
Styfhals was awarded an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2023 to pursue her postdoctoral project at the Michael Sars Centre at the University of Bergen in Norway.
She says the process of applying helped her plan and define the project, and gaining the award boosted her confidence. “It was the first time I obtained my own funding, and it made me feel more confident in pursuing my own research interests,” Styfhals says. “In a time when science funding is being cut in some countries, it provides me some job security as well.”
Styfhals says Ctenophore brains are extremely unusual. “Our human brains have synapses between neurons, but Ctenophores do not,” she says. “It is a continuous network, and we really have no idea of how it functions.”
She believes that studying the Ctenophore nervous system may provide insights about fundamental principles of information transmission and how different types of neural networks compute information.
Styfhals completed her PhD as a joint project between KU Leuven in Belgium and the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, Italy. She moved to Bergen in Norway to be able to combine marine science with developmental molecular biology.
“Bergen is surrounded by water and there is a lot of interest in marine science here,” she says. “Moving to the Michael Sars Centre was an eye-opening experience because everyone works on similar topics and it is a very stimulating environment for a postdoc.”
