Epistimones Paco Chow and Megan Lee

Armin Lak is a neuroscientist and is a Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the University of Oxford, studying the neuronal circuits that govern learning and decision making. In particular, his research focuses on the role of dopaminergic neurons in different types of decision making through a combination of state-of-the-art neuronal circuit tools with novel behavioural methods and computational models.



TIMESTAMPS



(00:35) – Most beautiful aspect about biology

(09:32) – Dopamine

(11:34) – Reward prediction error hypothesis

(22:41) – Decision making

(33:41) – Incentive salience theory

(39:04) – Computing value in the brain

(44:10) – Experimental and computational techniques

(50:42) – What is the right level of explanation

(53:18) – Favourite part about doing science

(55:04) – Wolfram Schultz

(57:49) – Advice for young scientists

Chaitanya Gokhale is a research group leader in theoretical eco-evolutionary dynamics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. His lab uses theoretical biology to elucidate the associations and interactions that power emergent complexity at multiple scales.



TIMESTAMPS

(00:35) – Natural and synthetic gene drives 

(08:54) – Population dynamics of gene drives 

(14:50) – Mating complexity on gene drive dynamics 

(28:00) Evolutionary game theory 

(41:38) Single games vs multiple games 

(56:44) – Mutualism 

(1:07:00) – Origin of his interest in theoretical biology 

(1:16:13) – Advice for aspiring scientists

Oriel FeldmanHall is the Alfred Manning Associate Professor of Cognitive, Linguistics and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. Her research focuses on studying the neural basis of moral decision making, altruism, and socio-emotional decision making. Specifically, she uses techniques from different fields like behavioural economics, social psychology, imaging and psychophysiology to disentangle the cognitive and neural processes behind the complex choices that shape human social behaviour.



TIMESTAMPS

(00:45) – What is morality

(03:21) – Why do humans have morality

(08:40) – Neurobiology of moral decision making

(19:53) – Studying moral decision making

(32:36) – What is the right level of explanation

(33:58) – Engineering morality

(35:54) – Oriel’s journey in science

(41:08) – Advice for young scientists

Adam Packer is a neuroscientist and a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the University of Oxford. He has helped pioneered all-optical interrogation techniques that allow simultaneous manipulation and recording of neural circuit activity with cellular resolution in vivo, and his research focuses on using these techniques to investigate how complex spatiotemporal activity patterns in neural circuits drive behaviour.



TIMESTAMPS

(00:40) – Most beautiful aspect of biology

(02:26) – What is the right level of explanation

(06:45) – Measuring neural activity

(17:38) – Manipulating neural activity

(21:35) – Optogenetics

(27:10) – Determining causality

(37:44) – Using light to measure and manipulate neural activity

(49:32) – Voltage imaging

(53:24) – New insights

(55:06) – Adam’s journey in science

(1:03:28) – Consciousness

(1:05:18) – Theory in neuroscience

(1:07:19) – Progress in neuroscience

(1:08:14) – Advice for young scientists

Christopher McFarland is an Assistant Professor in Genetics and Genome Science at Case Western Reserve University. His lab integrates evolutionary theory with quantitative experimentation to better understand tumour biology.



TIMESTAMPS

(00:28) – Relevance of evolution to cancer 

(03:00) – Genome instability in cancer development 

(05:14) – Accumulation of deleterious mutations in cancer 

(15:50) – Comparison with older ideas in cancer biology 

(22:17) – Experimental study of tumour evolution 

(35:33) – Cancer therapeutics and treatment 

(47:41) – Main challenges for the cancer biology field 

(54:49) – His career journey and advice for young scientists

Will Ratcliff is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech. His lab combines mathematical modelling, synthetic biology and experimental evolution, in particular long term evolution experiments (LTEEs), to study the evolution of multicellularity and the spatial dynamics of microbial social interactions.



TIMESTAMPS

(00:31) – Categorisation of multicellularity

(12:04) – Selection pressure for multicellularity in aggregative organisms

(19:40) – Darwinian definition of individuality

(23:22) – Experimental study of selection for multicellularity and LTEE

(44:50) – Entanglement in biology

(48:57) – Is it easy to evolve multicellular life?

(58:47) – Using phylogenetic trees

(1:07:37) – Microbial social interactions and their spatial dynamics

(1:17:25) – Discussion of the article 'Bacterial species rarely work together'

(1:28:33) – Advice for young scientists



NOTES



Free version of the book on evolution of multicellularity: https://t.co/CDQdyW1lXZ

MuLTEE thread: https://twitter.com/wc_ratcliff/status/1423359901766602755?s=20&t=UrBEBZZMZQCjeHaw-0vCyg

New paper examining clonal development and aggregation directly: https://twitter.com/wc_ratcliff/status/1550585020376649729?s=20&t=UrBEBZZMZQCjeHaw-0vCyg

Guide to public speaking: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j4U4VjoTOK5tQLoLxr4W7qfwa35Yy2Dv/view?usp=sharing

The article we discussed on bacterial social interactions: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn5093