My name is Elisa Thoral and I started my postdoctoral project with Andreas Nord in the end of July. After having done all my studies and my PhD in Lyon, France, I am now in Sweden for the next 2 years!
During my Masters and my PhD, I was interested in the effects of multiple environmental stressors, such as variations in temperature, oxygen and food availability, on the metabolism of different fish species (sardine, goldfish, zebrafish, rainbow trout, sea bass and sea bream). More specifically, I studied the muscular metabolism of these animals at different biological scales, from the whole individual, by focusing on the swimming performance, to the cell, where I focused on mitochondrial metabolism. I have shown through several scientific articles that the responses to environmental stress observed at the different scales do not necessarily go in the same direction, thus sometimes complicating the predictions that could be made about the effects of climate change on these animals!
After my PhD, I spent another year in my laboratory in Lyon as a temporary teaching and research associate, which can be considered as a first postdoctoral project. During this year, I taught different scientific subjects, as I had already done during my PhD, and I also had several research projects in parallel, this time combining the study of muscle metabolism with heat waves and new muscle sampling methods in goldfish, apron, and round goby.
And so I went straight to this postdoctoral project at Lund University where I am still interested in the effects of thermal variations on mitochondrial metabolism, but this time on a completely different model: birds! I am now trying to understand the metabolic consequences of sudden heat waves or cooling in different tissues, but also at different life stages in Japanese quails.
And on a personal note, I am a fan of movies, reading and hiking!
