The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
Please welcome Dr. Radim Zidek to Whitney Laboratory! Radim joins the Martindale Lab as a Research Scholar where he will investigate the formation of body axes in cnidarians, acoels and other early branching marine invertebrates in order to achieve better understanding of the evolution of animal body plans.
Radim received his Bachelor’s degree in biology from the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic in 2010 for a thesis on the ontogeny of beetle horns. Two years later, he achieved a master’s degree at the same university for investigating a putative novel member of Wnt signaling pathway in the regulation of neuroblast migration in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. He then started his graduate studies in Kozmik’s lab at the Czech Academy of Sciences, where he researched the role of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in neurodevelopment, segmentation and gut differentiation of the marine polychaete annelid Platynereis dumerilii, for which he was awarded a doctorate by the Charles University in Prague earlier this year. In his spare time, he likes to travel to various parts of the world, where he photographs the wildlife, extends his beetle collection and seeks novel experience. He also enjoys reading, playing guitar, riding the bicycle and many other sports and enjoys the company of his friends and family.