2025 European Drosophila Board elections

For the 2025 elections we are looking for Group Leaders representing the following five locations:

- 1 United Kingdom & Ireland representative

- 1 France representative 

- 1 Germany representative 

- 1 Switzerland/Austria representative 

- 1 Eastern Europe (Poland, Czechia, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Moldova, Russia) representative 

For the Germany and Switzerland/Austria representatives, we received a single nomination, therefore we are delighted to announce that Richard Benton (University of Lausanne) and Marion Silies (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) will join the board in 2025.

For the other representatives, please vote by May 23^rd by following this link after looking at the candidates below. 

You can vote for one candidate for each area, not just for where you are based.

The results will be announced at EDRC 2025 in Alicante (25-28 September 2025).

Candidate statements:

UNITED KINGDOM & IRELAND

Julia Cordero (University of Glasgow and CRUK Scotland institute)

I have been a member of the Drosophila research community for almost 25 years thorough my work on inter-cellular and inter-organ signalling in health and disease. Being part of this amazing community has always meant something bigger and better than any of my own achievement. I have received tremendous personal and professional support from many friends and colleagues whom I met through the ‘fly world’. Now, it is a good time for me to give the fly community more than my research. Becoming an EDR would be the start of such journey.

Ilan Davis (University of Glasgow, UK)

I run an interdisciplinary lab, focusing on non-canonical RNA-based post-transcriptional modes of regulating gene expression. I started working on flies in 1985 as an undergraduate in Michael Akam’s lab in Genetics, Cambridge, and have used Drosophila as my main model since then. I did PhD with David Ish-Horowicz in Oxford, as part of establishing mRNA localisation as a field, then a postdoc with Pat O’Farrell, one of the first to establish GFP use in flies and set up my lab in 1996 in Edinburgh as a Wellcome Fellow. Moved to Oxford as a Wellcome Fellow in 2007 and to Glasgow in 2023 to take up a strategic appointment.

I am a long-standing and committed member of the fly community and would like to make a difference to the strength and future well-being of Drosophila research.  I intend to represent the fly community in other fields and models to increase funding opportunities and the availability of new cutting-edge technologies such as spatial biology platforms in Drosophila.

Cathy Slack (University of Warwick, UK)

I have worked with Drosophila throughout my academic career – almost 30 years - initially starting out as a developmental neurobiologist but then applying those skills in Drosophila genetics to using flies to understand the biology of ageing, which is the primary focus of my research group at the University of Warwick. I am passionate about advancing Drosophila research both amongst the scientific community as well as within the public domain through community, media and public engagement to help drive and shape the future of our field. I would bring to the European Drosophila Board my experiences in strategic research funding, mentorship and support of ECR scientists, conference organisation and the strengthening of international networks through collaborative initiatives. After all these years working with Drosophila and benefiting greatly from the collaborative and open ethos of the wider fly community, it would be an honour to give back as a member of the European Drosophila Board.

FRANCE

Filipe Pinto Teixeira (Centre for Integrative Biology, University of Toulouse, France)

I started my lab at the Centre for Integrative Biology in Toulouse, France, where we use the Drosophila visual system to study neural circuit development. 

My application to the European Drosophila Board is motivated by the belief that I can bring a valuable European Junior PI perspective to the community. As a new and foreign PI in France, I have navigated significant bureaucratic and logistical challenges that affect not only fly researchers in France but also those working across Europe. These experiences have given me an updated and practical view of the hurdles faced by our community, especially by early-career scientists.

I am eager to support the board's mission by contributing to working groups and initiatives that address these challenges and by representing the needs and voices of my fellow researchers. Additionally, I have built a strong network across both Europe and the United States, which I believe can help foster connections, share resources, and promote collaborative efforts within the Drosophila community.

Michael Rera (Institut Jacques Monod)

I have been using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism for studying ageing since my second year of master, 20 years ago. Its powerful genetic tools and the strong physiological conservation have allowed me to describe a novel "ageing" phenotype" that is broadly evolutionarily conserved in nematodes, zebrafish and mice. This has led to a clinical trial on human patients that started in january. In parallel I have a paper with colleagues developing new neuroactive drugs that we validate in flies prior to testing in mammals.

As a member of the board, I'd like to develop a "Translational research" working group, both highly relevant and timely.

Magali Suzanne (Centre for Integrative Biology, University of Toulouse, France)

I worked on Drosophila for 30 years, focusing on cell-cell communication and morphogenesis, using live imaging and mechanobiology methods at the interface between biology and physics. I fell in love with this model during my PhD and could never let it go, working successively with Stéphane Noselli (Toulouse, Nice), Ernesto Sanchez-Herrero (Madrid), Hermann Steller (New York), before starting my own team in 2011.

The Drosophila community is a living, friendly, dynamic and supportive community. A gigantic panel of genetic tools have been developed over the years and allow to manipulate the genome in a very creative and controlled manner, making this model quite exceptional. Promoting regular meetings of this vibrant community is crucial to catch up on recent developments, favor exchanges and discussions. I feel very enthusiastic about joining the European Drosophila Society (if elected) and would be pleased to contribute to the cohesion of this amazing community.

EASTERN EUROPE 

Levente Kovacs (Institute for Research, Development and Innovation in Applied Natural Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

Levente has used Drosophila to explore key questions in cell biology throughout his scientific career. After completing his PhD in Szeged (Hungary), he did a very successful postdoc in the Glover lab in Cambridge (UK) and Caltech (USA), culminating in a first-authored Nature Genetics paper. He returned to his alma mater: Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania) to start his ciliopathy research group in 2023. His Eastern European roots and workplace would allow him to well represent this region, as he knows the differences from Western labs based on his training.

Rita Sinka (Department of Genetics, University of Szeged, Hungary)

Rita Sinka completed her PhD thesis in 2002 at the Biological Research Centre Szeged (Hungary), under the guidance of Miklós Erdélyi. Over the next six years, she investigated cell cycle regulation, and the elements involved in membrane transport processes in the laboratories of Professors David Glover and Sean Munro at the University of Cambridge and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, respectively. In 2009, she established her independent research group in the Department of Genetics at the University of Szeged, focusing on understanding the mechanisms of testis development. Since 2022, she serves as head of the Department of Genetics, and she actively engages in both Hungarian and international conferences and holds a position in the board of the Hungarian Genetics Society. Additionally, she maintains strong connections with Drosophila research groups in the region, making her an excellent candidate to represent the area in the EDB.