Speakers
| Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado Born in Caracas Venezuela, February 24, 1964. Received his Bachelor’s Degree in Molecular Biology and Chemistry from Vanderbilt University in 1986. In 1992, he received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, where he studied mouse ES cells and their in vitro differentiation under the tutelage of Dr. Jeffrey Robbins and Thomas Doetschman. In 1994, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Donald D. Brown at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Embryology as a postdoctoral fellow and in 1995 was appointed Staff Associate. It was during this period that Dr. Sánchez Alvarado began to explore systems in which to molecularly dissect the problem of regeneration. In 2002 he became an Associate Professor at the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and in 2005 he was promoted to Professor and was appointed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. His current efforts are aimed at elucidating the molecular basis of regeneration using the free-living flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea. |
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| Sean Carroll is a Professor of Genetics and Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin. He is also the author of the recent books The Making of the Fittest and Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo. | |
| Elizabeth Craig is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. She received her PhD from Washington University School of Medicine, and after postdoctoral work at the University of California-San Francisco, joined the faculty at Wisconsin. Craig studies the diverse physiological functions of molecular chaperones. | |
| Ana Maria Cuervo obtained her M.D. and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Valencia (Spain). After postdoctoral training at Tufts University, Boston, she became faculty in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she continues her studies in the role of protein-degradation in neurodegenerative diseases and aging. | |
| Christopher M. Dobson received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1976, having worked on the application of NMR spectroscopy as a means of defining the structures and dynamics of proteins in solution. After a short period as a Research Fellow he moved to Harvard University as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. In 1980 he returned to the University of Oxford first as a Lecturer and later as Professor and Director of the Oxford Centre for Molecular Sciences. His research interests increasingly focused on defining the mechanism of protein folding and more recently on understanding the consequences of misfolding particularly in terms of its relationship to human disease. In 2001 he moved to the University of Cambridge as John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biology. From 1st October 2007 he will serve as the next Master of St John's College, Cambridge. | |
| Greg Elgar is Reader in Functional Genomics at Queen Mary, University of London. After gaining his PhD in Cambridge with Sydney Brenner, he continued his work on vertebrate comparative genomics at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton UK. His recent work has focused on the identification and functional characterization of the conserved cis-regulatory languages associated with patterning of the vertebrate embryo. | |
| Eileen Furlong Biography Ph.D.: Univ. College Dublin, Ireland. Post-doctoral fellow: Stanford University, California. Group Leader: European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) since Oct 2002. The Furlong lab’s main focus is Gene Regulatory Networks, using Drosophila as a model. They integrate Functional Genomics, Genetics and Computational approaches to dissect the logics driving complex cell fate decisions. |
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| Keith Gull obtained his PhD in the University of London and moved straight onto a lectureship at the University of Kent. He subsequently held a personal chair at Kent when he moved to the University of Manchester where he spent the 1990s involved with the development of the School of Biological Sciences as Head of Biochemistry and founding Research Dean in the School of Biological Sciences. He moved to Oxford in 2002 as a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow. His research is focussed on molecular parasitology, particularly African trypanosomiasis and also on the mammalian centriole. |
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| Siegfried Hekimi took his PhD at the University of Geneva, and followed by a post-doctoral stay at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Since 1992 he is at McGill University in Montréal, where his research focuses on mitochondria and aging, using C. elegans and mice as model systems. Links: www.biology.mcgill.ca/faculty/hekimi/ |
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| Sally Lowell I am interested in how intercellular communication regulates self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells. I did my PhD with Fiona Watt at CRUK, followed by postdocs with David Anderson at Caltech and Austin Smith at the University of Edinburgh. I have recently set up my own group in Edinburgh. |
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| Professor Laura Machesky Ph.D. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, USA with Thomas Pollard; Postdoctoral work with Alan Hall in London; Independent research at the University of Birmingham 1999-2007. Currently at the CRUK Beatson Institute for Cancer Research studying the molecular mechanisms of actin assembly. |
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| Masaru Okabe 1971 Graduated from Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University: 1978 Obtained Ph.D from Osaka University Thesis: In vitro fertilization of mouse eggs 1998 Professor, Genome Information Research Center, Osaka UniversityBelieve in the power of gene manipulated animals and made first “green mice” in the world. |
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| Vassilis Pachnis Upon completing Medical Studies in Athens I went to the University of Pennsylvania to do a PhD in Genetics (supervisor Shirley Tilghman). Then I did postdoctoral work at Columbia University (NY) with Frank Costantini. Since 1991 I am at the National Institute for Medical Research and currently I am the Head of the Division of Molecular Neurobiology. |
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| Renate Renkawitz-Pohl Since 1996 full Professor “Developmental Biology”, research focus: myogenesis and spermatogenesis, 1991-1995 associate Professor “Genetic” with research focus on gene regulation during development, 1985-1991 group leader position at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry/Genecenter in Munich, 1984 habilitation period in Heidelberg, 1985 habilitation tubuline gene family RNA PolymeraseII, resaech oject: Drosophila |
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| David Ron is a Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology at the New York University School of Medicine, USA. Work in his laboratory at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine has focused on the cellular adaptations to protein misfolding, especially how they pertain to mammalian pathophysiology. | |
| David Rubinsztein After completing his basic medical training and housejobs, David Rubinsztein did a BSc (Med) Hons and PhD in the Medical Research Council/University of Cape Town Unit for the Cell Biology of Atherosclerosis. He came to Cambridge in 1993 as a senior registrar in Genetic Pathology. In 1997, he acquired his Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training and was awarded a 6 year Glaxo Wellcome Fellowship. In 2001 he was awarded an MRC Programme grant and a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellowship, which were both renewed in 2006. He was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2004 and was promoted to Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics at the University of Cambridge in 2005. |
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| Ben Scheres Ben Scheres is a full professor in the Department of Biology of Utrecht University. He is interested in developmental mechanisms in plants, and in the extent to which these differ between the plant and animal kingdoms. His group investigates pattern formation, cell polarity and cell cycle control. The aim is to understand at the single cell level the network logic of interacting gene products that determine cell specification, cell division rates and -planes, and organ growth. To this end the group analyzes interactions between many genes that are involved in patterning, cell polarity and cell cycle control in the Arabidopsis root tip |
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| Jim Smith obtained his PhD with Lewis Wolpert in 1979. He did postdoctoral work first at Harvard Medical School and then at ICRF, where he studied early Xenopus development with Jonathan Slack. He moved to NIMR in 1984, leaving in 2000 to become Chairman of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. | |
| Dr. Thor did his graduate work with Thomas Edlund, Umea University, Sweden, followed by postdoc at The Salk Institute, La Jolla, with John B. Thomas. Dr. Thor then ran his own lab, as an Assistant Professor, at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Since 2004, he works at Linkoping University, Sweden. | |
| Takashi Toda 1984:Ph.D. Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan “Study of the cell division cycle genes which control nuclear division” (Dr. Mitsuhiro Yanagida) 1984-87: Postdoctoral fellow Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, New York, USA. “Analysis of the RAS/cAMP pathway in the budding yeast” (Dr. Michael Wigler) 1987-1994: Assistant Professor, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan 1994: Research Scientist, Laboratory of Cell Regulation, then Imperial Cancer Research Fund and now Cancer Research UK, London. 1999-: Senior Research Scientist |
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| Professor Mike Tuite Mick is Professor of Molecular Biology in the Department of Biosciences at Kent. He moved to Canterbury in 1983 after doing doctoral and postdoctoral research in Oxford and California. His main research interest is the study of prions in yeast and establishing the role that chaperone proteins play in their ‘infectivity’. |