NEWS

October 3rd, 2025
Our new preprint "A conserved logic for the development of cortical layering in tetrapods" is on bioRxiv! Led by our fantastic Astrid Deryckere, this was a nice collaboration with the groups of Rahul Satija at the New York Genome Center and Christian Mayer at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence. 

September 10th, 2025
Maria presents at the The Integrative Biology of Brain Evolution (TIBBE) virtual seminar series. Link to join here

August 2025
Eli's manuscript on the evolution of Cajal-Retzius cells in vertebrates is on bioRxiv. You can read it here
Nicholas attends the AI@MBL: Machine Learning for Microscopy Image Analysis course in Woods Hole

July 2025
Welcome Pauline Affatato, who officially joins our lab as a graduate student!
And congratulations to Giacomo Gattoni for receiving a Revson Foundation postdoctoral fellowship!

June 2025
Welcome Jackson Cook, joining us from Williams College for a summer internship!

May 2025
Maria is awarded the MIND Prize from the Pershing Square Foundation. The generous support from the Foundation will enable us to explore further the links between brain plasticity and regeneration. A short video about the project is available here. Press releases here and here and here.
Andrew gives an invited talk for the "Future of Neuroethology" webinar series.

March 2025
Our paper "Adeno-associated viral tools to trace neural development and connectivity across amphibians" is published in Developmental Cell! This was a fun collaboration with a team of amphibian neuroscientists, including the Sweeney lab at ISTA, funded by an NSF EDGE award. We show for the first time that AAVs can be used to deliver genes to the amphibian nervous system. Congratulations to all authors! See also a piece on The Transmitter featuring our work here.

January 2025
Dr. Lucia del Valle Anton joins our lab as a postdoc. Welcome Lucia!
We also welcome to Johanna de la Cruz and Nastasia Nelson for their rotations.

December 2024
Nicholas Chua is awarded a NIH F31 Fellowship! Congratulations!  

September 2024
Therese Zinga, undergraduate student at Columbia, joins our lab. Welcome Therese! 
We also welcome Erica Hurley and Pauline Affatato for their rotations.

July 2024
Tori Saltz joins our lab as a graduate student! Welcome Tori!
And welcome also Alisha Aristel, who joins us for the summer through the CEGS Summer Undergraduate Program.

June 2024
Astrid receives the Charles Turner Award for Postdoctoral Studies in Biological Sciences. Congratulations!
Lu wins the NIH BRAIN Initiative Photo and Video Contest with her video "Neuronal fireworks when the salamander sniffs"! Watch the winning video here

January 2024
Welcome Natalie Spollen, undergraduate student at Columbia, to the lab!

December 2023
Maria receives the Ben Barres Career Acceleration Award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The generous support from CZI will enable us to expand our work on the evolution of brain regeneration.

October 2023
Maria is featured in a Faculty Spotlight Interview - link here

August 7th -11th 2023
Eliza and Maria give talks at Neuroethology GRC: Behavior, Evolution and Neurobiology: Linking Diversity in Cells, Circuits, and Brain Architecture to Ecologically Relevant Behaviors.
Andrew presents a poster!

June 2023
Welcome to our summer undergraduate interns Lekha and Lina!

May 30th, 2023
After a successful Qualifying Exam, Nicholas is the fourth PhD Candidate of the Tosches lab! Congratulations!

May 15th- 18th, 2023
Eliza and Andrew present posters at Janelia Conference "Neuro-Evo: A Comparative Approach to Cracking Circuit Function III" at which Maria is an organizer!

March 17th, 2023
Dr. Giacomo Gattoni joins the lab as a new Postdoc! Welcome Giacomo!

February 14th, 2023
Our research is featured on Quanta Magazine! [link]

January 26th, 2023
Our new paper "Molecular Diversity of Neuron Types in the Salamander Amygdala and Implications for Amygdalar Evolution" is published in Brain, Behavior, and Evolution. [link]

January 9th, 2023
Timothy and Bella start their rotation in the lab. Welcome!

November 30th, 2022
Maria speaks as a panelist for the Rosalind Franklin Society Annual Meeting [link]

November 6th-11th, 2022
Andrew is giving a talk and presenting a poster at the Janelia - Junior Scientist Workshop on Mechanistic Cognitive Neuroscience. 

October 18th-20th, 2022
Alonso and Eli are presenting a poster and Jamie is giving a talk at the NHGRI CEGS Annual Meeting in Durham, NC. Alonso won the Rossy Award for best poster!

September 29th, 2022
Astrid is awarded the BSCDB PhD Excellence Award for her work with octopus in the Seuntjens Lab at KU Leuven. Congratulations Astrid!

Sept 26th-30th, 2022
Alonso is presenting a poster at the 2022 EMBO Regeneration and Tissue Repair Workshop in Barcelona.

September 12th, 2022
Xiaoyun starts her rotation in the lab. Welcome Xiaoyun!

Sept 8th, 2022
The lab publishes our first paper! “Cell-type profiling in salamanders identifies innovations in vertebrate forebrain evolution” is published in Science. Featured in Science (Perspective piece by Faltine-Gonzalez and Kebschull [link]), Nature Review Genetics and Quanta Magazine [link], among others. 

September 1st, 2022
The lab is awarded two grants!
We are excited to be awarded a MIRA grant from NIH, which will support our research on regeneration for the next five years, and the Rita Allen Scholar Award from the Rita Allen Foundation (press release here).

August 6th-12th, 2022
Eli, Jamie and Astrid are presenting posters at the Gordon Research Conference "Neural development" in Newport, RI.

July 8th, 2022
Maria is awarded the John Kendrew EMBL Alumni Award. [announcement] [interview] [press release]

July 1st, 2022
Nicholas officially joins the lab as a graduate student!

June 23rd, 2022
After a successful Qualifying Exam, Eli is the third PhD Candidate of the Tosches Lab! Congratulations!

May 2022
Nicholas starts his rotation in the lab. Welcome Nicholas!

May – July, 2022
Eliza attends the Neural Systems & Behavior Course at MBL.

April 24 – 26th, 2022
First lab retreat in Poconos, PA!

April 2022
Nicholas starts his rotation in the lab. Welcome Nicholas!

March 2022
Eli is awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation! Congratulations Eli!

January 28th, 2022
Eliza is awarded the first place Scientific Award for the Art in Neuroscience Cellular Imaging Competition at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute.

December 13th, 2021
Astrid is awarded an EMBO Long-term postdoctoral fellowship! Congratulations Astrid!!

December 1st, 2021
Andrew joins the lab as a postdoc. Welcome Andrew!

October 3rd-10th, 2021
Alonso is away at the 2021 Stem Cell and Regeneration Course at MBL.

Sept 15th, 2021
After a long hiatus caused by the pandemic, Boldizsar Jekely is back in the lab!

Sept 7th, 2021
Britt Bistis starts her rotation in the lab. Welcome Britt!

Sept 1st, 2021
After a successful Qualifying Exam, Alonso is the second PhD Candidate of the Tosches lab! Congratulations!

Sept 1st, 2021
The lab is awarded an EDGE grant by NSF to develop new viral vectors for amphibians, in collaboration with D. Kelley (Columbia), H. Cline (Scripps), T. Miles (Caltech), M. Shein-Idelson (Tel Aviv), L. Sweeney (IST Austria), and A. Yamaguchi (Utah).

Aug 20th, 2021
The review paper "From Cell Types to an Integrated Understanding of Brain Evolution: The Case of the Cerebral Cortex" is published in Annual Reviews in Cell and Developmental Biology

July 1st, 2021
Eli officially joins the lab as a graduate student!

May 18th, 2021
Dreyton Amador joins the lab as an undergraduate student. Welcome Dreyton!

May 17th, 2021
After a successful Qualifying Exam, Eliza is the first PhD Candidate of the Tosches lab! Congratulations!

Apr 5th, 2021
Elias Gumnit starts his rotation in the lab. Welcome Eli!

Mar 23rd, 2021
Eliza is awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation! Congratulations Eliza!

Mar 1st, 2021
Astrid Deryckere joins the lab as a postdoc. Welcome on board, Astrid!

Feb 12th, 2021
The perspective paper "Different origins for similar brain circuits" is published in Science
 
Aug 24, 2020
The paper "A community-based transcriptomics classification and nomenclature of neocortical cell types" is published in Nature Neuroscience! 

May 28, 2020
Maria receives the McKnight Scholar Award from the McKnight Foundation - Press release here

May 15, 2020
Eliza and Alonso join officially the lab as graduate students!

Feb 13, 2020
The paper "A claustrum in reptiles and its role in slow-wave sleep" by Norimoto, Fenk, Li, Tosches et al is published in Nature!
- Press release: "Hidden away: An enigmatic mammalian brain area revealed in reptiles"
- Featured in Science: "The Australian bearded dragon may hold secrets to human sleep"

Jan 21, 2020
Welcome to our rotation students Eliza Jaeger (Biology) and Alonso Ortega Gurrola (Neurobiology and Behavior)!

Nov 11, 2019
Maria presents our research at the Allen Institute Showcase Symposium. See a video here.

Oct 16, 2019
Our Staff Associate Jamie Woych joins the lab. Welcome Jamie!

Sept 1, 2019
The lab is officially open! We are hiring at all levels. Check Open Positions for current opportunities, and watch this space for the latest news.

Nov 2, 2018
Maria is selected as a Next Generation Leader at the Allen Institute

May 2018
The paper "Evolution of pallium, hippocampus, and cortical cell types revealed by single-cell transcriptomics in reptiles" by Tosches, Yamawaki, Naumann, Jacobi, Tushev and Laurent is published in Science- Press release: "Tracing cerebral cortex evolution, cell by cell" - Recommended by F1000