“Drosophila Unite” written by Professor Michele Markstein, is a fantastic lab manual geared for individuals who have never worked with flies before. It provides all of the basis for working with flies in the lab starting with the life cycle of a the fly, how to put them to sleep, what balancer chromosomes are, how to designing and setting up genetic crosses and so much more.

The flyGrAM is an inexpensive behavior apparatus that provides an alternative to studying Drosophila locomotor activity by combining excellent spatial resolution, ease of use, and real-time activity analysis with open source software. It continues to be used at the annual Cold Spring Harbor course, Drosophila Neurobiology: Genes, Circuits & Behavior. Since its design in 2017 and has been successfully implemented in research programs at dozens of labs across the world. Detailed protocols are published in the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Protocols. Navigate to our Github below for the set of functions, scripts and associated documentation for flyGrAM construction and implementation.

Using the genetic anterograde tracing tool trans-Tango, Dr. Scaplen and her collaborators mapped the postsynaptic connections of the Mushroom Body, a learning and memory center within the Drosophila brain. Source data is available on the Brown University Digital Repository