Symposium “Bringing the World into the Lab”

June 13th, 2025, Botanical Gardens, Utrecht

We are excited to announce Bringing the World into the Lab, a cross-disciplinary research community meeting exploring innovative approaches to study animals in the lab under more naturalistic and ecologically relevant settings. The program brings together researchers from behavioural neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and immunology, working with different species (rodents, fish, birds). Join us for a lively exchange of ideas on how enriching laboratory environments and embracing complexity can reveal deeper insights.

Please register by clicking on the button below before May 31st, 2025

The program has space for a few voluntary pitches.

11:15 Coffee and tea

11:30 Judith Homberg (RadboudUMC) Building a semi-naturalistic environment

11:50 Martien Kas (RUG) Neural circuits mechanisms of social dysfunction; a transdiagnostic and translational approach under semi-natural conditions

12:10 Alexander Kotrschal  (WUR) Evolution in real time: the guppy in artificial selection experiments

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Bernhard Englitz (RU) Real-time analysis of audiovisual social interactions in rodents using acoustic camera and AI tracking

13:50 Alexander Heimel (NIN) Hidden Markov Models to study naturalistic behaviour

14:10 Saskia Arndt (UU) More Than a Cage: How the environment shapes rodent welfare and research outcomes 

14:30 Pitches

14:40 Break

15:00 Andrea Graham (Princeton) Keynote: Where the Wild Things Are: Naturalizing mouse models for immunology and beyond

15:40 Leo Joosten (RU) Exposome and the immune system

16:00 Kees van Oers (WUR) Measuring behaviour in the wild and in the lab

16:20 Drinks

Organisation: Judith Homberg (judith.homberg@radboudumc.nl) & Alexander Heimel (heimel@nin.knaw.nl) and steering committee RC Organisms in their Environment

Venue: Serre, Botanische Tuinen, Universiteit Utrecht, Budapestlaan 17, 3584 CD Utrecht