Albert Cardona
Albert Cardona | |
|---|---|
| Spouse | Marta Zlatic [1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Website | Personal website Lab website |
Albert Cardona is a neuroscientist and connectomics researcher who is a Programme Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.[2] and a Professor at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK.[3] He is also a Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge.[4] His research maps neuronal circuits with synaptic resolution using volume electron microscopy, particularly in small animals such as the Drosophila , and studies how the structure of a neural circuit relates to its function[2] [4]
Education and career
[edit ]Cardona completed his PhD at the University of Barcelona (2000–2005), where he studied developmental biology. He then undertook postdoctoral research on Drosophila neuroanatomy at UCLA (2005–2008).[4]
Between 2008 and 2011, Cardona was a Group Leader at the Institute of Neuroinformatics, jointly run by the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich.[5] During this period, he developed computational and image-processing methods for neural circuit reconstruction and co-founded two influential open-source platforms that have become widely adopted in the neuroscience community.
Cardona joined the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus in 2012, serving as Group Leader until 2019.[6] In 2019, he was appointed Programme Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology [2] and Professor at the University of Cambridge,[3] where he leads research on whole-brain connectomics, circuit development, and structure–function relationships in neural systems.
Research contributions
[edit ]Open-source software development
[edit ]Cardona co-founded FIJI (Fiji Is Just ImageJ), an open-source platform for biological image analysis that has been adopted by thousands of research laboratories worldwide.[7] The platform extends ImageJ with features specifically designed for analyzing large biological datasets.
He also co-founded CATMAID (Collaborative Annotation Toolkit for Massive Amounts of Image Data), a web-based platform that enables distributed teams of researchers to collaboratively reconstruct neural circuits from electron microscopy data.[8]
Insect brain connectome
[edit ]Cardona is a co-senior author of the first complete synaptic-resolution connectome of an insect brain, published in Science in 2023.[9] This work mapped approximately 3,000 neurons and 548,000 synapses in the Drosophila larva brain, representing a significant milestone in connectomics. The reconstruction involved an international collaboration spanning multiple years and required the development of new computational methods for handling and analyzing the large-scale electron microscopy datasets.
Cardona's laboratory has used these connectome datasets to investigate the neural basis of learning, sensory processing, and motor control in Drosophila , combining anatomical reconstructions with functional studies to understand how circuit structure relates to behavior.
References
[edit ]- ↑ "Professor Marta Zlatic creates first wiring map of insect brain - Trinity College Cambridge" . Retrieved 26 January 2026.
- 1 2 3 "Albert Cardona | MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology" . Retrieved 26 January 2026.
- 1 2 "Professor Albert Cardona | Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience" . Retrieved 26 January 2026.
- 1 2 3 "Professor Albert Cardona | Pembroke" . Retrieved 26 January 2026.
- ↑ "Institute Members | Institute of Neuroinformatics | UZH" . Retrieved 26 January 2026.
- ↑ "Albert Cardona – Former Janelia Group Leader". HHMI Janelia Research Campus. Retrieved 12 January 2026.
- ↑ Schindelin, Johannes; Arganda-Carreras, Ignacio; Frise, Elke; Kaynig, Verena; Longair, Mark; Pietzsch, Thomas; Preibisch, Stephan; Rueden, Curtis; Saalfeld, Stephan; Schmid, Bernd; Tinevez, Jean-Yves; White, Daniel J.; Hartenstein, Volker; Eliceiri, Kevin; Tomancak, Pavel; Cardona, Albert (2012). "Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis". Nature Methods. 9 (7): 676–682. Bibcode:2012NatCB...9..676S. doi:10.1038/nmeth.2019. PMC 3855844 .
- ↑ Saalfeld, Stephan; Cardona, Albert; Hartenstein, Volker; Tomancak, Pavel (2009). "CATMAID: collaborative annotation toolkit for massive amounts of image data". Bioinformatics. 25 (15): 1984–1986. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btp266. PMC 2712332 . PMID 19376822.
- ↑ Winding, Michael; Pedigo, Brian D.; Barnes, Chris L.; Patsolic, Hannah G.; Park, Yongsoo; Kazimiers, Thomas; Fushiki, Akinao; Andrade, Inês V.; Khandelwal, Avinash; Valdes-Aleman, Javier; Li, Feng; Randel, Nadine; Barsotti, Elizabeth; Correia, Ana; Fetter, Richard D.; Hartenstein, Volker; Priebe, Carey E.; Vogelstein, Joshua T.; Cardona, Albert; Zlatić, Marta (2023). "The connectome of an insect brain". Science. 379 (6636) eadd9330. Bibcode:2023Sci...379d9330W. doi:10.1126/science.add9330. PMC 7614541 .