UlbertLab

Organotypic slice project successes at conferences

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 03:41:28 -0700

25-27. February 2026: Poster presentation and lightning talk at the Stem Cells in Neuroscience Meeting in Tübingen, Germany: https://stemcelltuebingen.com/information/
Topic: Collaboration between our group and Ágota Apáti on organotypic brain tissue cultures and neuronal progenitor cells was presented by Rebeka and Vera. Their participation in the meeting was supported by the organisers with a travel award.

22-24. April 2026: Rebeka also participated in the Conference of the Hungarian Microscopy Society in Siófok: https://www.mikroszkopostarsasag.hu/mmtkonf2026/
Topic: Rebeka presented her high-throughput, deep-learning-based bioimage analysis pipeline for human organotypic brain tissue cultures, which won the audience-choice award.

Highlights: Colourful line-up of speakers, a welcoming atmosphere, and excellent organisation!

Congrats to Andris on his PhD public defense

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 01:45:56 -0700

We congratulate András Adolf on his successful public doctoral defense, titled:
From Signal to Control: Real-Time Artifact Handling and the Effect of Preprocessing Strategies in EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interfaces.

The event marked a significant milestone, highlighted by a great presentation, insightful discussion with reviewers, and, of course, the well‑earned recognition of years of dedicated research.

We were honoured to celebrate this moment with him and wish him continued success on the path ahead.

We are at Brain Awareness Week 2026!

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 01:23:57 -0700

Continuing our tradition, we are preparing for the Brain Awareness Week global event (by the Dana Foundation) this year as well on March 19-20 at ELTE, Budapest.

István, Luca, Ricsi, Réka, and others will have presentations and several interactive stands on neurotech, histology, and microscopy.

Also, you can touch real brains and implants!

Rebeka won the Richter Talentum Fellowship!

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 03:31:22 -0800

The Richter Gedeon Excellence PhD Fellowship, provided by the Richter Gedeon Talentum Foundation to 27 PhD students whose research is related to the company's R&D&I activities, has relevance to both academic research and the pharmaceutical industry. There are two main areas of focus for the recipients: clinical research into psychiatric disorders or gynecological disorders.

Her project title is: "Electrophysiological and anatomical investigation of cortical neural networks."

More information on the Fellowship (in Hungarian).

Press release (Facebook, in Hungarian).

HunDoc & INC Conferences in January 2026

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:16:28 -0800

We are happy to announce and cordially invite all neuroscientists to participate in the International Neuroscience Conference (INC) 2026 of the Hungarian Neuroscience Society (HNS) on January 29-30, 2026, with the Hungarian Neuroscience Doctoral Conference (HuNDoC 2026) as a satellite, pre-conference event on January 28.

This year, INC 2026 will take place at Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Natural Sciences (ELU FNS) in Budapest, and is partly organized by us. These outstanding scientific events will feature plenary lectures, symposia, and poster sessions, showcasing novel and groundbreaking results from across the field.

We are honored to welcome renowned international scientists who will present their...Read More

Rebeka attended a prestigious Cajal Course in Bordeaux, France

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 04:34:12 -0800

Rebeka recently attended the "The Brain Prize Course: Advanced Techniques for Synapse Biology" organized by the Cajal Advanced Neuroscience Training Programme in Bordeaux, France.

"I have been participating in a 3-week hands-on training program on synapse biology for 23 selected students, where I received a partial stipend covering my expenses. I learned and practiced state-of-the-art imaging, functional, and computational methodologies with leading synapse biologists from around the world."

Research projects:

Lighting up neuromodulation: visualizing PKA signaling in hippocampal neurons using a FRET-based imaging approach.
Exploring the impact of extracellular matrix complexity in the diffusion of circulating molecules and cell surface proteins

Course website: https://cajal-training.org/on-site/synapse-biology-2025/ (LinkedIn post)

Conference Season

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 01:34:23 -0800

Our lab has participated in several conferences over the past few months, from September to December.
We have been presenting at the following events, among others:

ESSFN - 26th European Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, Budapest, 24-27 September 2025: István, Luca, Ricsi and Domi delivered talks.
Society for Neuroscience Hungary (Local Chapter), Budapest, 30 September - 1 October 2025: Rebeka presented a poster.
Human Single Neuron Meeting (Caltech, Pasadena, CA) and SfN Neuroscience 2025 (San Diego, CA), 13-19 November 2025: Domi and Doma presented...Read More

Congrats to Luca, Ricsi, and the Team on winning a prestigious European Consortial funding

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 16:41:28 -0700

Over the past five years, the Belgian startup ReVision Implant has been developing a groundbreaking brain prosthesis that aims to partially restore vision to the blind. A consortium was formed to carry out the first human testing of the technology, consisting of the manufacturing startup and three research groups, including our group at the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences. The consortium received nearly €2.5 million in funding from the European Innovation Council’s EIC Transition call. The call supports the further development of promising, innovative ideas whose preliminary results have already received EU funding. In the FLAIRVision project, a joint development plan of Belgian, Spanish, and Hungarian partners won the grant.

PRESS RELEASE:

“Thousands of micro-electrodes grouped into delicate strands go into the brain, directly triggering the view of tiny dots of light that compose a simple image. Surely that must sound familiar to those following the current boom in neural implant research and development,” says Maarten Schelles, CTO of ReVision Implant. “But there are also important differences compared to what others are doing.” The young CTO, who recently received a PhD in engineering, seems enthusiastic about the challenge of partially restoring vision to the blind. “We are much more focused on long-term stability, having a dedicated and patented system to keep the electrodes in place,” he explains. “We've also made design choices to ensure a product lifetime of over 20 years. And...Read More

Welcome to the team, Kata!

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 02:19:46 -0700

Katalin Zsófia Tóth has recently joined our group as a laboratory research assistant as well as a PhD student.

In her PhD work, Kata will be studying neurons derived from human iPSCs in human organotypic brain cultures. She is going to be involved in several related projects, which will allow her to work with (among others) patch-clamp intracellular electrophysiology, multi-channel extracellular recordings, two-photon laser scanning microscopy, postoperative human organotypic slice cultures, and histological reconstructions.

Last but not least, she recently won a NeuroArt competition with the following, beautifully reconstructed image from her previous work. Thank you for your enthusiasm, and we look forward to working with you!

Good times ahead!

Congrats to Levi and Domi on winning the prestigious EKÖP Scholarship

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 02:01:22 -0700

We are happy to announce that Levi (pre-doctoral category) and Domi (young researcher category) are listed as winners of the "25/26 EKÖP Scholarship" (University Research Scholarship Program, or "ex-ÚNKP" ) at the PPCU Faculty of Information Technology and Bionics.

List of winners with their research topics can be found here (HU):
https://ppke.hu/egyetemi-kutatoi-osztondij-program