VFB will be giving a talk and live demos at NeuroFly 2026
VFB will be giving a talk and running live demos, alongside our posters, at NeuroFly 2026 in Cologne, Germany.
The 21st Biennial European Drosophila Neurobiology Conference, NeuroFly 2026, will be held at the University of Cologne, Germany, from September 7th to 11th, 2026. This conference continues the tradition of bringing together researchers from around the world to discuss the latest advancements in Drosophila neurobiology, including studies on neuronal circuits, synapses, the connectome, signal transmission, behaviour, development, and more. The event emphasises interdisciplinary interactions in an inclusive environment, featuring a mix of invited talks and abstracts from both junior and senior researchers.
Virtual Fly Brain (VFB) is excited about the upcoming conference. Following on from our previous successful sessions, such as the one at NeuroFly 2024 titled ‘Bridging connectomics and transcriptomics’ (workshop notebook), we’ve put together a new self-led workshop covering the connectomics and transcriptomics data we have available — see the update below for details.
Some of our team will be there in person. We will be giving a talk about the data and tools we make available, and running live demos during the poster sessions, where you will also find our posters. Come and find us if you would like a hands-on walkthrough. The demos will introduce the connectomics data available on VFB and show you how to perform your own analysis using the latest tools and APIs for integrating Drosophila neuroscience data. We can also show you how to use AI to query our data directly, through our MCP tool.
For more information about NeuroFly 2026, including the full programme, visit the official website at https://neurofly.org/home/ or the 2026 conference page at https://neurofly.org/y2026/.
Update (30 August 2026): With NeuroFly 2026 just over a week away, here’s what to look out for.
Work through our self-guided workshop. The VFB Self-led Learning Sessions are a set of seven sessions on finding, connecting and examining neurons across all the connectomes available on VFB, plus imaging and transcriptomic data. We built it as a self-led, online workshop rather than a single in-person session to remove space constraints and to open it up to non-attendees. Work through it in your own time, before, during or after the conference. There are multiple routes, Python, R, Chat interface, our MCP tool, or the 3D browser, all with little to no setup required. Sessions are designed to be worked through in order, then you can apply what you’ve learned to your own neurons, regions and genes!
Find us at our table. We’ll have a table at the conference throughout, so come and find us if you get stuck on the workshop, want a live demo, or just have questions about the data or tools!
The VFB team at NeuroFly 2026 (see the full VFB team):
- Douglas Armstrong (Current Project PI)
- Greg Jefferis (Current Project PI) — giving Plenary Lecture 2 on Day 2, 10:00 Tuesday 8th September
- Clare Pilgrim (Ontology Editor/Curator) — speaking after the coffee break following Greg’s talk, at the start of the Motor Control oral session, 11:00 Tuesday 8th September
- Robert Court (Lead DevOps) — poster A66, “Querying Virtual Fly Brain in natural language: opening curated Drosophila connectomics to non-specialists”, Poster Session A
- Alex McLachlan (Curator/UX Tester) — poster A67, “Linking neurons across connectomes, light-level images and expression data in Virtual Fly Brain (VFB) using NBLAST”, Poster Session A
So you can easily spot us if you have any questions:
