ASAP CRN Team Cragg

First Group Leaders announced for new dedicated Parkinson's Research Centre In 2025, the UK DRI partnered with Parkinson’s UK to

Congratulations to Pete Magill, one of our ASAP core-PIs, on his appointment as a founding Group Leader at the new UK DRI Parkinson’s Research Centre.

A fantastic step forward for #parkinsons research!

Read more: www.ukdri.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

@ukdri.ac.uk @rnd.ac.uk

Striatum-wide dopamine encodes trajectory errors separated from value - Nature Cue-evoked striatal dopamine release in mice encodes bidirectional trajectory errors, spatially and temporally separated from value coding, reflecting the relationship between the speed and direc...

📣 New publication alert 📣

Check out the exciting work from Howe Lab published in @nature.com exploring how #dopamine supports goal-directed navigation in mice!

Huge congratulations to Eleanor Brown, Mai-Anh Vu, and Safa Bouabid for leading this work!

🎉Exciting week for our ASAP Team Cragg at the 2026 GRC Basal Ganglia in beautiful Tuscany 🎉

We are proud that four of our PIs, Steph Cragg, Mark Howe, Dinos Meletis, and Yulong Li, are presenting talks in neural circuit function and dysfunction.

Looking forward to a great meeting!

@asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org @stephcragg.bsky.social

📣 New preprint alert 📣

A collaborative study from the Howe and Cragg labs reveals an anatomical hotspot in the striatum where #dopamine and #acetylcholine interact to shape learning and movement.

Congratulations to Safa Bouabid and Mai-Anh Vu for leading this work!

#openscience #collaboration

Doctoral position in Systems Neuroscience Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research? To be a doctoral student means to devote oneself to a research project under supervision of experienced researchers and following an individu

🎉 The Meletis lab is hiring 🎉

Are you interested in neuron subtypes and motivated behaviour? Join us as a fully funded PhD student at Karolinska Institutet.

📅 Application deadline: February 10

More details ⬇️

@ki.se @meletis.bsky.social
#basalganglia #phd #neuroscience

Meet Linda Kaupp, a visiting Master student coming from the Karolinska Instituet! She will be conducting her master's thesis at the Cragg Lab on the interaction between astrocytes, cholinergic interneurons and dopaminergic neurons.

#MeetOurTeam

@oxforddpag.bsky.social @stephcragg.bsky.social

Adenosine in the Brain: Recent Progress on Detection, Function, and Translation Although adenosine was identified in the brain many decades ago, our understanding of when, where, and how it functions has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven in part by innovative technological...

At #SfN25 in San Diego this week? #Adenosine fans, this one is for you! Catch Dr. Kathryn Todd at MIN40 | Room 6CR on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST!

Want more? Dive deeper with the must-read review by the full group of speakers and chairs!

@stephcragg.bsky.social

It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of Dr. Richard Exley.

Richard was Steph Cragg's first postdoc, who is remembered as a brilliant scientist and a joyful colleague. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this difficult time, and may his memory continue to inspire us all.

@stephcragg.bsky.social @oxforddpag.bsky.social @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org

Welcome to the team, Mara Wuelfing!

Mara is completing her Biochemistry Part II Project in the Cragg Lab, where she will be investigating the source of tonic adenosine in the nucleus accumbens under the supervision of Kat Todd, an ASAP-funded postdoc.

#MeetOurTeam

@stephcragg.bsky.social @oxforddpag.bsky.social

Welcome to the team, Katherine Wang and Isabella Wijsmann!

Katherine joins as an MRC-funded Research Assistant and Isabella as a DPhil student at Cragg Lab, where they will be working on how novel glycine receptors shape #dopamine and #acetylcholine signalling in health and #PD.

#MeetOurTeam

@qinbo.bsky.social

🎉Congratulations Dr. Qinbo Qiao of the Cragg lab! 🎉

Your hard work has paid off, and Team Cragg is so proud of you. We can't wait to see where life takes you, and good luck at your new position in Shanghai!

@stephcragg.bsky.social @oxforddpag.bsky.social

@stephcragg.bsky.social
@wademartinslab.bsky.social @meletis.bsky.social @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org

Members of Team Cragg from Oxford and Karolinska gathered at the Sherrington Library, joined remotely by colleagues from Boston.

Professor Stephanie Cragg with Oxford and Karolinska colleagues at Christ Church College, celebrating the close of an inspiring first day of the symposium.

We were thrilled to (mostly) meet in-person last week for the 3rd Annual Symposium of ASAP Collaboration for Team Cragg!

Thank you all for an inspiring meeting of science, sharing and #collaboration. We have built a great momentum, and we are ready for new discoveries in #Parkinsons research!

📣 New preprint alert 📣

A new collaborative study from @meletis.bsky.social and @jakobssonasap.bsky.social on mapping the molecular changes in the mouse and human striatum in #Parkinsons! Congratulations to Marta Graziano and Ioannis Mantas for spearheading this fantastic work!

#OpenScience

@stephcragg.bsky.social @oxforddpag.bsky.social

Tony Barbay PhD Tony Barbay - Postdoctoral Research Scientist

Meet Tony Barbay, our new MRC-funded Postdoctoral Researcher at Cragg Lab! He will explore the role of astrocytes as neuromodulators in the striatum in health and PD. We look forward to working with you!

Learn more: www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/tony-ba...

#Parkinsons #astrocytes #The_MRC #MeetOurTeam

📣The Wade-Martins Lab is hiring 📣

Are you interested in developing novel biomarkers and testing therapeutic compounds using iPSC-derived dopamine neurons from PD patients? Join us as a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford.

Deadline is noon (UK time) on Sept 5th!

bit.ly/4lURYW9

We're kicking off our new series: Initiative Spotlight 🔦 starting with Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP)!

@asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org aims to speed discovery and drive progress toward a #ParkinsonsDisease cure through collaboration and open science.

Learn more: bit.ly/3Ys7sIo

@wademartinslab.bsky.social @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org

In case you missed it, be sure to watch July's instalment of the Discover ASAP!

Ricardo Márquez Gómez from Wade-Martins Lab discussed their scalable microfluidic platform that enables the study of human neuron microcircuitry, connectivity, and regeneration in vitro 🔬

#OpenScience #PD #iPSCs

@stephcragg.bsky.social @wademartinslab.bsky.social

Fantastic work spearheaded by @safabouabid.bsky.social from Mark Howe Lab!

Outreach: How Science Week's 2025 theme made me reflect on how I talk about science (by Dr Katherine Brimblecombe) Science week 2025 theme: Change and adapt

Check out Katherine Brimblecombe's news article on outreach activities!

Katherine reflects on how her outreach work with primary school kids has led to changes in the way she thinks about science communication.

#SciComm #ScienceOutreach #WomenInSTEM #STEM

New insights into axonal regulators of dopamine transmission in health and disease Dopamine release in the striatum is credited with being critical to the selection and learning of motivated actions and outcomes. Dysregulation of str…

📣 New publication alert 📣

Check out our collaborative review on axonal molecular and circuit mechanisms governing dopamine exocytosis in health and PD. Congratulations to Kathryn Todd from Cragg Lab and Kaitlyn Cramb from Wade-Martins Lab for spearheading this publication!

@stephcragg.bsky.social @lintianphd.bsky.social @yulonglilab.bsky.social @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org

Are you at the ISN-ASN Meeting held in New York this week?

Don't miss out the talk from our very own Steph Cragg this Friday from 3 to 5 pm EDT! The "Flowing Neurochemicals in the Brain" symposium is being chaired by CRN members Yulong Li and Lin Tian.