|
CDB Seminars Thursday 23 May at 1pm __________________________ Thursday 30 May at 1pm
|
Professor Claudio Stern
|
Claudio Stern is J Z Young Professor and Head of the Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. He is Chair of the UCL Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine. Prof Stern has been elected
Fellow of the Royal Society, Academy of Medical Sciences, Institute of
Biology
and of the Latin-American Academy of Sciences and member of EMBO. In
2006 he was
awarded the prestigious Waddington Medal from the British Society for
Developmental Biology. Contact Prof
Stern |
| Research | Lab Website | Publications |
The research in our laboratory focuses on the processes that establish cell diversity and pattern in the early embryo. We ask the questions: how do cells in the embryo know what fates to adopt, at the right positions and at the right time? What mechanisms ensure that the correct proportions of cells are allocated to different organs?
Currently, the projects in the lab fall into four major headings:
1. How do higher vertebrate embryos establish their polarity, and what mechanisms coordinate cell movements with gene expression?
2. What mechanisms are responsible for inducing the early nervous system?
3. How is the early nervous system subdivided into forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord?
4. Embryonic stem cells - where are they in the embryo, and can we harness them to understand developmental pathways?
We are particularly
interested in discovering mechanisms that represent general
principles in development, and therefore follow
a multi-disciplinary
approach. We choose (or if necessary, develop) techniques that will help us best
to answer the questions being asked, rather than being wedded to any particular
set of techniques. We do not define our questions based on specific genes, but
rather based on the biological event we are trying to understand – we first
define the biological process and then try to establish which genes are
important for that process. Finally, although much of our research uses chick
embryos (because they are easy and cheap to obtain at precise stages of
development, because it is easy to manipulate cells, and because a lot is
already known about how they develop), we are also not wedded to this as an
experimental system. Current projects use chick, quail, frog and mouse embryos,
and we are also collaborating with other labs using yeast, flies and
fish.
Our current research is supported by grants from the Medical Research Council, BBSRC, National Institutes of Health (NIMH, USA), the European Union (Network of Excellence “Cells into Organs”) and Eisai Pharmaceuticals.
Profile
1972-1975:
BSc (Hons.) Biology, University of Sussex
1975-1978: DPhil
in Developmental Biology, University of Sussex
1978-1984:
Post-doctoral research with Professor Ruth Bellairs, University College
London
1984-1985: University Demonstrator, Anatomy
Department, Cambridge University
1985-1994: University
Lecturer and Student of Christ Church, Oxford
1994-2001:
Professor and Chairman, Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia
University, New York, USA
2001-2011: J Z Young Professor,
University College London (Head of Department of Anatomy & Developmental
Biology 2001-2007, then Head of Cell and Developmental Biology 2007-2011).
Selected
publications
A full list of Prof Stern's publications is available here
- Jaffe, L.F. and Stern, C.D. (1979) Strong electrical currents leave the primitive streak of chick embryos. Science 206, 569-571.
- Keynes, R.J. and Stern, C.D. (1984) Segmentation in the vertebrate nervous system. Nature 310, 786-789.
- Stern, C.D. and Keynes, R.J. (1987) Interactions between somite cells: the formation and maintenance of segment boundaries in the chick embryo. Development 99, 261-272.
- Primmett, D.R.N.; Norris, W.E.; Carlson, G.J.; Keynes, R.J. and Stern, C.D. (1989) Periodic segmental anomalies induced by heat-shock in the chick embryo are associated with the cell cycle. Development 105, 119-130.
- Stern, C.D. and Canning, D.R. (1990) Origin of cells giving rise to mesoderm and endoderm in chick embryo. Nature 343, 273-275.
- Davies, J.A.; Cook, G.M.W.; Stern, C.D. and Keynes, R.J. (1990) Isolation from chick somites of a glycoprotein fraction that causes collapse of dorsal root ganglion growth cones. Neuron 2, 11-20.
- Selleck, M.A.J. and Stern, C.D. (1991) Fate mapping and cell lineage analysis of Hensen's node in the chick embryo. Development 112, 615-626.
- Figdor, M.C. and Stern, C.D. (1993) Segmental organization of embryonic diencephalon. Nature 363, 630-634.
- Izpisúa-Belmonte, J.C., De Robertis, E.M., Storey, K.G. and Stern, C.D. (1993) The homeobox gene goosecoid and the origin of organizer cells in the early chick blastoderm. Cell 74, 645-659.
- Levin, M., Johnson, R.L., Stern, C.D., Kuehn, M. and Tabin, C. (1995) A molecular pathway determining left-right asymmetry in chick embryogenesis. Cell 82, 803-814.
- Joubin, K.I. and Stern, C.D. (1999). Molecular interactions continuously define the organizer during the cell movements of gastrulation. Cell 98, 559-571.
- Streit, A., Berliner, A.J., Papanayotou, C., Sirulnik, A. and Stern, C.D. (2000) Initiation of neural induction by FGF signalling before gastrulation. Nature 406, 74-78.
- Bertocchini, F. and Stern, C.D. (2002). The hypoblast of the chick embryo positions the primitive streak by antagonizing Nodal signalling. Dev. Cell 3, 735–744.
- Sheng, G., Dos Reis, M. and Stern, C.D. (2003). Churchill, a zinc finger transcriptional activator, regulates the transition between gastrulation and neurulation. Cell 115, 603-613.
- Bertocchini, F., Skromne, I., Wolpert, L. and Stern, C.D. (2004). Determination of embryonic polarity in a regulative system: evidence for endogenous inhibitors of primitive streak formation in the chick embryo. Development 131, 3381-3390.
- Voiculescu, O., Bertocchini, F., Keller, R. and Stern, C.D. (2007). The amniote primitive streak is defined by epithelial cell intercalation before gastrulation. Nature 449, 1049-1052.
- Papanayotou,
C., Mey, A., Birot, A.-M., Saka, Y., Boast, S., Smith, J.C., Samarut, J. and
Stern, C.D. (2008). A mechanism regulating the onset of Sox2 expression in the
embryonic neural plate. PLoS Biology, 6,
e2.
Books - Stern, C.D. and Holland, P.W.H. (eds.) (1993). Essential Developmental Biology: A Practical Approach. IRL Press at Oxford University Press, Oxford. 333pp. ISBN: 0-19-9634238 (hardback), 0-19-963422 (paperback). Japanese translation: ISBN: 89592-123-9
- Stern, C.D. (ed.) (2004). Gastrulation: from cells to embryo. Cold Spring Harbor Press. ISBN: 0-87969-707-5. 731pp.
Page last modified on 15 may 13 12:03 by Edward D Whitfield
