Benjamin Lindsey, PhD

Accepting graduate students

  • Master's - Yes
  • PhD - Yes

Interested undergraduate and graduate students, and postdocs should contact Dr. Lindsey directly for available positions.

Research themes

  • Neural stem cells and the development and maturation of the stem cell niche
  • Neural stem cells, plasticity and animal behaviour
  • Neural stem cells and their capacity for nervous system repair

Research interests

  • Zebrafish model
  • Environmental and sensory enrichment
  • Brain and spinal cord regeneration and therapeutics
  • Advanced fluorescence and live in vivo imaging
  • Electron microscopy
  • Cell and molecular techniques
  • Learning and memory

Research affiliations

  • Affiliated member of the Spinal Cord Research Center (SCRC) at UM

Research summary

The Lindsey Lab uses a combination of advanced cellular imaging methods (fluorescence confocal, live in vivo imaging, scanning and transmission EM, correlative EM, tissue clearing and 3D imaging), and molecular techniques (transgenics, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, PCR, RNA-sequencing) to understand context-dependent changes in lifelong neural stem cell behaviour from early brain development until senescence and following injury in the zebrafish model.

Biography


Dr. Benjamin Lindsey obtained his PhD at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Vincent Tropepe in the department of cell and systems biology. Here, he mapped the ultrastructural composition of adult neurogenic niches of the mature zebrafish brain. During his doctoral thesis, Dr. Lindsey further developed methods to study adult neural stem cell plasticity to understanding the relationship between adult neurogenesis and the external environment.

In 2014, Dr. Lindsey joined the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University as an NSERC-funded postdoctoral fellow, where he trained with one of the world leaders in zebrafish neural stem cells and regeneration, Dr. Jan Kaslin. During this time, Dr. Lindsey studied the molecular and cellular regulation of active and quiescent neural stem cell populations for brain and spinal cord regeneration.

In 2017, Dr. Lindsey returned to Canada for his second postdoctoral fellowship with spinal cord and neuroplasticity expert Dr. Tuan Bui, at the University of Ottawa, Brain and Mind Research Institute. During this second, CIHR-funded postdoctoral position, Dr. Lindsey developed larval and adult spinal cord injury models to study the mechanisms regulating spinal cord regeneration. In February 2019, Dr. Lindsey joined the human anatomy and cell science at UM as an assistant professor, where he has established the first zebrafish facility for neural stem cell research.

Education

  • PhD (neuroscience), University of Toronto (2014)
  • Master of Science (anatomy and neurobiology), Dalhousie University (2007)
  • Bachelor of Science (zoology and neuroscience), University of Guelph (2004)

Contact us

Human Anatomy and Cell Science
130 Basic Medical Science Building
745 Bannatyne Avenue
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3E 0J9 Canada

204-789-3411
204-789-3920