THE HILL LAB
at Barnard College
Brendan Kelly (Holy Cross ‘19)
Summer 2025 News: the Hill Lab has moved to Barnard College at Columbia University! Barnard students interested in joining the lab or hearing more about our work should email Professor Hill ahill@barnard.edu. We’ll also be looking for a research technician soon. Interested candidates are encouraged to get in touch.
We use the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to study the molecular mechanisms by which genes modify neuronal activity and behavior. While the organization of the cells that make up the nervous system (neurons and glia) vary widely throughout the animal kingdom, many of the genes and proteins that underlie molecular functions in these cells, including propagation of electrical signals and synaptic transmission, are conserved between fruit flies and humans. Aspects of our work are therefore relevant both for a basic understanding of how nervous systems function, and have clinical relevance for human diseases caused by mutations in orthologs of the genes we study.
Artwork by Emily Hensley (Holy Cross ‘22)
