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Jonathan Chubb is promoted to Professor of Quantitative Cell Biology

About Jonathan's research:
 
Most of human development and disease is the result of a cell becoming different from its neighbours. Yet biological analysis usually makes measurements on homogenised cells or tissues. The differences between cells - the very features that drive development and disease - is lost in an amorphous puree, with no spatial information, nor any possibility to monitor how natural biological events proceed over time. My work takes a different approach, by developing and applying methods to investigate the biology of single cells. We take the simple (although frequently overlooked) view that to understand what a cell does, and how it makes decisions, you have to be able to study it, before, during, and after the processes in which you are interested. The alternative approach, of trying to piece the critical cell processes from a homogenised extract, would be akin to an alien trying to understand the game of football by homogenising a stadium on a Saturday afternoon. It is unlikely the alien would notice there was a ball.
 
My lab has been active in developing methods for directly visualising the activity of single genes in living cells, discovering that gene activity is discontinuous, occurring in “pulses” or “bursts”. Different genes show different types of pulses, with some genes showing switch-like behaviour (only OFF or ON) and others showing more tuneable behaviour - more like a dimmer switch. More recently, the lab revealed some unexpected features about how cells become different. The established idea is that cell behaviour is determined by the genes that are active. In contrast, my lab discovered that cells develop their identities during development because of the genes they turn off. We are now applying our approaches and concepts to understand how cells go back in developmental time, to a more embryo-like state. This work will provide an important framework for an improved and more wide-ranging implementation of regenerative medicine.
 
I trained as a PhD student as part of the world-leading MRC LMCB Graduate Programme. I carried out post-doctoral work at the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh and at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, taking my first independent position in Dundee, before moving back to UCL in 2012.
 
Jonathan's research webpage