Thomas Vajtay

Thomas Vajtay is a laboratory researcher in the Margolis Lab. He graduated from Rider University with a BS in Biology and a minor in Economics. While at Rider, he worked in E. Todd Weber's lab investigating the effect of different light exposure paradigms on the circadian behavior of the "jetlagless" BALB/cJ mouse strain. Following graduation from Rider, Tom worked as a lab technician at UMASS Medical School in David Weaver's lab working with ex vivo tissue cultures of brain and peripheral explants to see changes in the cyclic expression of genetically engineered luminescent circadian protein reporters. In February 2016 Tom joined the Margolis lab as a lab technician. In early 2019, he published a first author manuscript on the gain of function of muscles in the mouse whisker pad after facial nerve lesion. In August 2019, Tom was brought on as a laboratory researcher. Tom has been instrumental in analyzing big data generated from two photon imaging, RNA-sequencing, fiber photometry, and high speed videography.

• Vajtay TJ, Bandi A, Upadhyay A, et al. Optogenetic and transcriptomic interrogation of enhanced muscle function in the paralyzed mouse whisker pad. J Neurophysiol. 2019;121(4):1491–1500. doi:10.1152/jn.00837.2018

• Github