Developmental
Cambridge has a long history of research in developmental biology and this continues to be one of the pioneering fields within neuroscience. To understand how cells and molecules function in the context of a developing organism, developmental biologists make use of a wide range of techniques, including molecular biology, cell biology, imaging, biochemistry, structural biology, genomics, bioinformatics, evolutionary studies and physiology. This offers the opportunity for many collaborative interactions, including the departments of Biochemistry, Pathology, Genetics, Physiology Development and Neuroscience, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research. Developmental biology is a particular strength of the Gurdon Institute. Developmental mechanisms are highly conserved between species, with researchers working on organisms as diverse as Arabidopsis, Caenorhabditis elegans, chick, Drosophila, mouse, Xenopus and zebrafish to study problems such as the genetic and epigenetic bases of pluripotency, the mechanisms underlying cell migration and axon pathfinding and the transcriptional networks involved in the formation of tissues ranging from the testes to the neocortex.
Principal investigators
Dr Richard Adams
My group is interested in the mechanisms of morphogenesis that shape the early central nervous system. Using zebrafish as a developmental model, we image the movements of many hundreds of cells using time-lapse micoscopy. Applying methods of image...
Dr José Ignacio Alcántara
I am a founding member of the Laboratory for Autism Research (LaRA) and co-investigator in the Laboratory of Auditory Perception. My research interests include the mechanisms underlying the psychoacoustic abilities of normal and hearing-impaired ...
Dr Duncan Astle
My research uses EEG and MEG with children and adults to explore the neural and cognitive mechanisms of top-down attentional control. In particular, I am interested in how these control mechanisms interact with our ability to store information in ...
Dr Bonnie Auyeung CPsychol
Bonnie Auyeung is a researcher at the University's Autism Research Centre, where her primary research examines the effects of prenatal hormones on psychological and neural postnatal development.
Dr Sara Baker
I am interested in the role of pre-frontal functions (i.e., impulse control) in the formation and expression of beliefs especially during early childhood. I use behavioral and physiological measures (eye-tracking) to examine how children learn to...
Dr Clare Baker
We are investigating a broad range of questions relating to the development of neurogenic placodes and the neural crest, two embryonic cell populations in vertebrates that together build the entire peripheral nervous system. Neural crest cells als...
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
The Autism Research Centre (ARC), of which I am Director, has 6 programs of research, all focusing on Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC): (a) Perception and Cognition (investigating social and non-social cognition and sensory processing); (b) Neu...
Professor Michael Bate
My research is concerned with the way in which the machinery underlying coordinated movement is genetically specified and assembled during embryonic development. On the one hand this involves an analysis of the way in which muscles are assembled, ...
Professor Andrea Brand FRS FMedSci
Discovering how stem cells are maintained in a multipotent state and how their progeny differentiate into distinct cellular fates is a key step in the therapeutic use of stem cells to repair tissues after damage or disease. We are investigating th...
Dr Sarah Bray
We are interested in understanding the signalling pathways that co-ordinate the decisions made by cells during development. The ultimate fate of a cell is dictated in part by its heredity and in part through interactions with neighbouring cells. O...
Dr Isabel Clare
I am a clinical and forensic psychologist in services for people with intellectual disabilities and other developmental disabilities, working with one of the clinical research themes of the NIHR's CLAHRC for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. My ...
Dr Geoffrey Cook
My research concerns the mechanisms controlling axon growth. In the laboratory we are investigating two axon-repulsive systems, 1) the chatacterization of somite glycoproteins that repel axons, creating the segmented pattern of spinal nerves duri...
Dr Tim Croudace
Having trained as an experimental (B.Sc., PhD) and applied psychologist (Dip.App.Psych.) and in Health Services Research / Health Technology Assessment (M.Sc.) I am principally involved in a quantitative role in the design and analysis of epidemio...
Dr Greg Davis
Consciousness, 'Free Will' Visual attention, visual cognition, abnormalities of precortical vision in autism and schizophrenia
Professor Anthony Dickinson
My primary research interests concern learning, memory, motivation, and future planning in both humans and animals. My interest in learning and memory is focussed on the distinction between goal-directed and habitual instrumental behaviour as asse...
Dr Stephen Eglen
I use computational tools to help investigate mechanisms of neural development. In particular, I study the formation of retinotopic maps and retinal mosaics in vertebrate visual systems. In addition, I am interested in the analysis of large-scal...
Dr Jan Felix Evers
Coordinated behaviour is the end result of successful neuronal network assembly. During development, the excitability and connectivity of each neuron must be controlled to ensure that a functional network is built. I am particularly interested in ...- Professor Ismaa Sadaf Farooqi
The long-term goal of my research is to identify the genetic, molecular, and physiological pathways that regulate body weight in humans and to integrate these into an understanding of the pathophysiology of obesity. 
Professor James Fawcett
Axon regeneration in the damaged CNS: Regeneration of axons after CNS damage is blocked by several molecules, partcularly by proteoglycans in the extracellular matrix. We are developing methods to digest proteglycans, inhibit their production, and...
Dr Anne Ferguson-Smith
Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic mechanism causing genes to be expressed depending on their parental origin. Our research investigates the mechanism and evolution of genomic imprinting and the function of imprinted genes in development and dise...
Dr Kristian Franze
I am mainly interested in the mechanics and optics of cells of the nervous system. Using atomic force and confocal microscopy as well as a dual-beam IR-laser trap called 'optical stretcher' passive and active mechanical properties of nervous tissu...
Dr Dino Giussani
We have intertwined our interests in oxygen and the development of the central nervous and cardiovascular systems to propose that oxidative stress underlies the common molecular pathway via which prenatal hypoxia contributes to a developmental ori...
Professor Ian Goodyer
I am a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist based at Cambridge University pursuing research into the connections between human development and psychopathology. My studies are centred on adolescents in the community as well as current patients. Our re...
Dr Anjali Goswami
My research focuses on cranial evolution and development in mammals. In particular, I am interested in developmental interactions that drive morphological variation and morphological diversity on palaeontological time scales. I use quantitative ...
Dr Jochen Guck
The paradigm that neurons in the CNS cannot regenerate is gone. While most research to date is biochemical, there are also physical aspects that need to be considered. We are developing tools to investigate axonal growth and to direct in a certain...
Professor William Harris
Where does the nervous system come from in the embryo? How does it grow to the right size and shape? How do stem cells turn into more committed neuronal progenitors and how do these cells know when to leave the cycle and differentiate into neural ...
Professor Melissa Hines
I study gender development, and am particularly interested in how prenatal influences (e.g., gonadal hormones) interact with postnatal experience to shape brain development and behaviour. My current research programme includes studies of individu...
Professor Tony Holland
The focus of our interdisciplinary research is on learning disabilities (intellectual disabilities/mental handicap) from different perspectives. Research to date has had the following main themes. First, the relationship between specific genetical...- Dr Joni Holmes
I am interested in the overlap between working memory, attention and executive function processes in children and adults. My research has focussed on the role of working memory in children's mathematical skills, and on understanding the cognitive ... 
Professor Christine Holt FRS FMedSci
My laboratory studies how nerve connections are first established in the brain. Our studies focus on the developing visual system and our main goal is to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms of axon guidance that enable axons to naviga...
Dr Ayla Humphrey
As a Lead Psychologist (Children's Division, CPFT) & Affiliated Lecturer in Developmental Psychiatry, I am interested in developing clinical services for children & families. Recent service initiatives include: co-founder of first UK holistic neur...- Dr Phil Jones
We are investigating how normal stem cells transform into cancer cells in a range of sytems, both by studying stem and progenitor cell fate and also by investigating the role of a specific cell fate regulators. Our focus has been on Hes6, which r... 
Dr Napoleon Katsos
I am interested in how developmental research can inform theoretical linguistic inquiry and vice versa. My particular focus is in the area of semantics and pragmatics, and in language learning by monolingual and bilingual children as well as child...
Professor Barry Keverne
Professor Keverne has long standing experience in behavioural neuroscience and has, in the past 10 years, brought molecular genetic techniques to focus on brain development and investigate how genetic perturbations of the brain influence brain fun...
Professor Roger Keynes
Growth cone repulsion is an important mechanism controlling axon growth. During development it guides axons by excluding them from repulsive regions of the embryo. Following injury to the adult brain it may also block axon regeneration, with major...
Dr Matthias Landgraf
Development of neural networks - from the morphogenesis of dendritic trees to patterns of connections. As neuronal circuits form, synaptic terminals are delivered to specific regions of the nervous system so that connections can form between appr...
Dr Rick Livesey
A fundamental question in neural stem cell biology is how distinct classes of neurons are generated at specific places and times in the nervous system in order for them to be incorporated correctly into neuronal circuits. We study this question in...- Dr Eric Miska
We are interested in all aspects of gene regulation by regulatory RNA. Current research themes include: miRNA biology and pathology, miRNA mechanism, piRNA biology and the germline, endo-siRNAs in epigenetic inheritance and evironmental conditioni... 
Dr Emad Moeendarbary
I am a mechanical engineer by training with a strong interest in the experimental and theoretical/computational study of biological systems. Presently, I am working at the interface of engineering and neuroscience to study mechanics of neurons ...
Dr Joseph Murray
I research the development of conduct problems, crime and violence through the life course. I have investigated the childhood origins of antisocial behaviour in several large, longitudinal studies in Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland and the U...
Dr Graham Murray
My research investigates the brain basis of particular neuropsychiatric symptoms - namely delusions, hallucinations and anhedonia. It's already known that brain systems involving the neurotransmitter dopamine are disturbed in psychotic illnesses s...
Dr Shin-ichi Ohnuma
We are studying mechanisms of retinogenesis using frog Xenopus as a model system. In particular, we are interested in mechanism of communication between cell cycle regulation and cell fate determination.
Professor Ole Paulsen
The primary interest of my group is the relationship between network oscillations and synaptic plasticity. Network oscillations naturally organise spike timing conducive to spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), a strong candidate for a mechani...
Professor Roger Pedersen
Our principal objective is to define the molecular and genetic basis for the maintenance of the pluripotent status of human embryonic stem cells, and similarly, the basis for their differentiation into the primary body lineages: mesoderm, endoderm...
Dr Anna Philpott
Mechanisms that link the cell cycle and differentiation are poorly understood and still less is known about how developmental cues are linked to cell cycle exit. Our laboratory is interested in understanding the coordination of cell proliferation ...
Dr John Rogers
Approaches to gene therapy to promote axon regeneration. Specifically: expression of enzymes which can destroy axon-inhibitory proteoglycans, and the use of viral vectors which can express them in injured neurons.
Professor Ben Simons
I am interesting in applying methods of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and population dynamics to lineage tracing studies to investigate mechanisms of stem cell fate in development and maintenance. As well as neurogenesis in adult mammalian...
Professor Karen Steel
Hearing impairment is very common in human populations, but it is a very heterogeneous disorder with a wide range of causes including environmental insults as well as genetic components. It is difficult to disentangle the causes of hearing impairm...
Jillian Sullivan
My PhD study investigates the relationship between neural/physical growth trajectories and cognitive/developmental trajectories in infants and toddlers who are at risk for autism, children with autism, children with tuberous sclerosis, and those w...
Dr Denes Szucs
Szucs is a cognitive neuroscientist doing research on the representaiton of mathematics in the brain and on perceptual/motor integration and conflict detection/resolution. He is using behavioral methods, electro-physiology (EEG) and functional mag...
Dr David Tannahill
I have worked on a range of model systems from Xenopus and zebrafish to chicks and mice. My current research is focused on building an atlas that describes where and when large numbers of genes are expressed in the developing mouse embryo. For thi...- Dr Octavian Voiculescu
Main interest in the principles of building and shaping the central nervous system in higher vertebrates, and the relationship between morphogenesis and patterning of embryo. 
Dr Joyce Whittington
Early research on specific learning disabilities - dyslexia - and associated cognitve deficits. For the last 10 years research has focussed on various prevalence, cognitive and behavioural aspects of Prader-Willi syndrome. Most of the latter is d...
Professor Geoff Woods
As a Clinical Geneticist my interest is in defining and understand Mendelain diseases. I ascertain and assess families and thier phenotypes, perform molecular genetic studies to find the putative pathogeneic mutations causing the family phenotype,...
Dr Kojiro Yano
Systems biology of Neuronal stem cells. This laboratory is carrying out systems biology-oriented studies of mouse neural cells together with the Cambridge Computational Biology Institute (CCBI). Dynamic properties of intracellular signalling tran...
Dr Chao Zhao
My research focuses on the mechanism of remyelination of the central nervous system after demyelination in various conditions. After demyelinating injury, the system activates a repair process, which involves oligodendrocyte progenitor cells turni...
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