Announcing our 2025 FocalPlane correspondents

We are delighted to welcome our latest correspondents to the FocalPlane community. We are looking forward to working with Sally Horton, Varsha Mahapatra and Nicole Noel throughout 2025 and can’t wait to read their blog posts!

Sally is a postdoctoral fellow at The Francis Crick Institute in London, UK. At The Crick, her research focusses on CDKL5, a serine-threonine kinase crucial for brain development. Specifically, Sally investigates how CDKL5-mediated phosphorylation regulates synaptic function, aiming to uncover how pathogenic mutations in CDKL5 lead to a severe genetic epilepsy syndrome. Sally has a strong background in microscopy and enjoys using a variety of imaging techniques in her research. On FocalPlane, she will be sharing technical insights, human-interest stories, and behind-the-scenes perspectives.

Varsha completed her masters at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India, where she studied transport of ciliary membrane proteins in Drosophila. Now, she is a PhD student at Utrecht University, Netherlands, where she is studying microtubule stability. Her goal is to uncover the mechanisms that confer stability to microtubules using in-vitro reconstituted microtubules and to determine how microtubule-associated proteins recognise and achieve subset specificity. As a correspondent, Varsha will blog on a range of different topics, including contributing interviews and ‘How to’ posts on FocalPlane.

Nicole is a research fellow at University College London, UK with a background in molecular genetics, cell biology and disease modelling. Her current research focusses on development, function, and disease of the light-detecting photoreceptor cells within the eye using zebrafish and turquoise killifish models. In her research, Nicole uses light and electron microscopy, as well as transcriptomics and ophthalmic techniques. Nicole is passionate about making science accessible through science communication, teaching and writing. Look out for Nicole’s FocalPlane posts on overlooked cellular features. 

Our correspondent scheme is run along with our sister site, the Node. You can meet their new correspondents here.

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