Rituja Bisen

Research Interest

Rituja has always been intrigued by the complexity of the brain: How does the state of mind affect our behavior? What are the neural mechanisms underlying decision making? What is the role of the environment in shaping our behavior? To answer some of these questions in her PhD project, Rituja is investigating how sensory inputs and internal states are integrated to shape the activity of neuronal networks in the Drosophila brain. Currently, she is spending most of her time befriending fruit flies and convincing them that it makes absolute sense to expose their brains to her, so that she can access their neurons and perform patch-clamp recordings.

Rituja holds a B.Sc in Biochemistry, Genetics and Biotechnology from Bangalore University, India and an MRes in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine from the University of Manchester, UK. Later, she moved to Germany to pursue her postgraduate studies and obtained a Masters in Molecular and Developmental Stem Cell Biology from Ruhr University Bochum. She carried out her master‘s thesis titled, “Effect of BAP1 mutations on DNA methylation pattern in human iPSCs” in Dr. Steenpaß’s lab at the Institute of Human Genetics, Essen.