Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research

The Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research was established at UCL in 1995 for the pursuit of excellence in translational biomedical research. Now, with its primary focus on fundamental and translational neuroscience, the WIBR is a key hub within the rich environment of the UCL neuroscience community.

Research

The WIBR is currently home to 14 Principal Investigators, including established senior academics as well as early-career scientists. Collectively we hold more than £25m in grants from The European Research Council, MRC, BBSRC, Wellcome and other biomedical research charities.

Teaching

Researchers within the WIBR organise and contribute to several distinguised undergraduate modules within the School of Life and Medical Sciences. The Institute has around 20 current PhD students, and runs a highly rated one-year MSc degree course in Drug Design.

Staff

Contact details for WIBR staff

Contact Us

Our address and location

Publications in the WIBR 2020

Tsutsumi S, Chadney O, Yiu T-Y, Bäumler E, Faraggiana L, Beau M, Hausser M (2020) Purkinje Cell Activity Determines the Timing of Sensory-Evoked Motor Initiation Cell Reports https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108537
Fişek, M., & Häusser, M. (2020). Are Human Dendrites Different?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2020.03.002
Dalgleish, H. W. P., Russell, L. E., Packer, A. M., Roth, A., Gauld, O. M., Greenstreet, F., . . . Häusser, M. (2020). How many neurons are sufficient for perception of cortical activity?. Elife, 9. doi:10.7554/eLife.58889
Adams, A., Bjaalie, J. G., Deshler, J. O., De Koninck, Y., Egan, G., Illes, J., . . . Yuste, R. (2020). International Brain Initiative: An Innovative Framework for Coordinated Global Brain Research Efforts. NEURON, 105 (2), 212-216. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2020.01.002
Arlt, C., & Häusser, M. (2020). Microcircuit Rules Governing Impact of Single Interneurons on Purkinje Cell Output In Vivo. Cell Rep, 30 (9), 3020-3035.e3. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2020.02.009
The International Brain Laboratory, Aguillon-Rodriguez, V., Angelaki, D., Bayer, H., Bonacchi, N., Carandini, M., . . . Zador, A. (2020). Standardized and reproducible measurement of decision-making in mice. doi:10.1101/2020.01.17.909838
Robinson, N. T. M., Descamps, L. A. L., Russell, L. E., Buchholz, M. O., Bicknell, B. A., Antonov, G. K., . . . Häusser, M. (2020). Targeted Activation of Hippocampal Place Cells Drives Memory-Guided Spatial Behavior. Cell. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.09.061
Theofanous, S. A., Florens, M. V., Appeltans, I., Denadai Souza, A., Wood, J. N., Wouters, M. M., & Boeckxstaens, G. E. (2020). Ephrin-B2 signaling in the spinal cord as a player in post-inflammatory and stress-induced visceral hypersensitivity. Neurogastroenterol Motil, e13782. doi:10.1111/nmo.13782
MacDonald, D. I., Wood, J. N., & Emery, E. C. (2020). Molecular mechanisms of cold pain. Neurobiology of Pain, 7, 100044. doi:10.1016/j.ynpai.2020.100044
Heegde, F. T., Luiz, A. P., Santana-Varela, S., Magnusdottir, R., Hopkinson, M., Chang, Y., . . . Chenu, C. (2020). Osteoarthritis-related nociceptive behaviour following mechanical joint loading correlates with cartilage damage. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. doi:10.1016/j.joca.2019.12.004
de Clauser, L., Santana-Varela, S., Wood, J. N., & Sikandar, S. (2020). Physiologic osteoclasts are not sufficient to induce skeletal pain in mice. Eur J Pain. doi:10.1002/ejp.1662
de Clauser, L., Luiz, A. P., Santana-Varela, S., Wood, J. N., & Sikandar, S. (2020). Sensitization of cutaneous primary afferents in bone cancer revealed by in vivo calcium imaging. Cancers, 12 (12), 1-19. doi:10.3390/cancers12123491
Alles, S. R. A., Nascimento, F., Luján, R., Luiz, A. P., Millet, Q., Bangash, M. A., . . . Wood, J. N. (2020). Sensory neuron–derived NaV1.7 contributes to dorsal horn neuron excitability. Science Advances, 6 (8), eaax4568. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aax4568
Cox, J., Woods, C. G., & Kurth, I. (2020). Peripheral sensory neuropathies – pain loss vs. pain gain. Medizinische Genetik. doi:10.1515/medgen-2020-2039
Conole, D., Chou, Y. -. T., Patsiarika, A., Nwabo, V., Dimitriou, E., Soudy, C., . . . Selwood, D. (2020). Discovery of a novel fluorescent chemical probe suitable for evaluation of neuropilin-1 binding of small molecules. Drug Development Research. doi:10.1002/ddr.21641
Colpitts, C. C., Ridewood, S., Schneiderman, B., Warne, J., Tabata, K., Ng, C. F., . . . Towers, G. J. (2020). Hepatitis C virus exploits cyclophilin A to evade PKR. Elife, 9. doi:10.7554/eLife.52237
Bertrand, J. A., Schicht, M., Stamer, W. D., Baker, D., Sherwood, J. M., Lütjen-Drecoll, E., . . . Overby, D. R. (2020). The β4-Subunit of the Large-Conductance Potassium Ion Channel KCa1.1 Regulates Outflow Facility in Mice. Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 61 (3), 41. doi:10.1167/iovs.61.3.41
Kim, J., Lana, B., Torelli, S., Ryan, D., Catapano, F., Ala, P., . . . Lin, Y. -. Y. (2019). A new patient-derived iPSC model for dystroglycanopathies validates a compound that increases glycosylation of α-dystroglycan. EMBO Rep, e47967. doi:10.15252/embr.201947967
Lu, Y., Wang, Y., Zhang, Z., Huang, J., Yao, M., Huang, G., . . . Wang, W. (2020). Generation of Chicken IgY against SARS-COV-2 Spike Protein and Epitope Mapping. Journal of Immunology Research, 2020, 1-8. doi:10.1155/2020/9465398
Li, K., Wei, S., Hu, L., Yin, X., Mai, Y., Jiang, C., . . . Zhao, B. (2020). Protection of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in a Mouse Model of Multiple Sclerosis. Mediators of Inflammation, 2020, 1-13. doi:10.1155/2020/2058272
Dreosti, E., & López-Schier, H. (2020). Animal Behaviour: Learning Social Distancing. Current Biology, 30 (20), R1275-R1276. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.072
Dreosti, E., Hoffman, E. J., & Rihel, J. (2020). Behavioral and Neural Genetics of Zebrafish. In R. T. Gerlai (Ed.), Modeling autism spectrum disorders in zebrafish. Academic Press.
Dreosti, E. (2020). Nurturing nature. Elife, 9. doi:10.7554/eLife.61323
Tunbak, H., Vazquez-Prada, M. C., Ryan, T. M., Kampff, A. R., & Dreosti, E. (2020). Whole-brain mapping of socially isolated zebrafish reveals that lonely fish are not loners. Elife, 9. doi:10.7554/eLife.55863
Michoud, F., Seehus, C., Schönle, P., Brun, N., Taub, D., Zhang, Z., . . . Lacour, S. P. (2020). Epineural optogenetic activation of nociceptors initiates and amplifies inflammation. Nat Biotechnol. doi:10.1038/s41587-020-0673-2
Talbot, S., Doyle, B., Huang, J., Wang, J. -. C., Ahmadi, M., Roberson, D. P., . . . Woolf, C. J. (2020). Vagal sensory neurons drive mucous cell metaplasia. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2020.01.003
Tsuchiya, Y., Byrne, D. P., Burgess, S. G., Bormann, J., Baković, J., Huang, Y., . . . Gout, I. (2020). Covalent Aurora A regulation by the metabolic integrator coenzyme A. Redox Biology, 28. doi:10.1016/j.redox.2019.101318
Bellany, F., Tsuchiya, Y., Tran, T. M., Chan, A. W. E., Allan, H., Gout, I., & Tabor, A. B. (2020). Design and synthesis of Coenzyme A analogues as Aurora kinase A inhibitors: An exploration of the roles of the pyrophosphate and pantetheine moieties.
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, 28 (22), 115740. doi:10.1016/j.bmc.2020.115740
Guo, J., Douangamath, A., Song, W., Coker, A. R., Edith Chan, A. W., Wood, S. P., . . . von Delft., F. (2020). In crystallo-screening for discovery of human norovirus 3C-like protease inhibitors. Journal of Structural Biology: X, 100031. doi:10.1016/j.yjsbx.2020.100031
Greenwood, S. O. R., Chan, A. W. E., Hansen, D. F., & Marson, C. M. (2020). Potent non-hydroxamate inhibitors of histone deacetylase-8: Role and scope of an isoindolin-2-yl linker with an α-amino amide as the zinc-binding unit. Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters. doi:10.1016/j.bmcl.2019.126926
Scott, O. B., & Chan, A. W. E. (2020). ScaffoldGraph: an open-source library for the generation and analysis of molecular scaffold networks and scaffold trees. Bioinformatics. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa219
Edith Chan, A. W. (2020). The shape of artificial intelligence: Just a black box?. CHEMICAL BIOLOGY & DRUG DESIGN, 96 (3), 882-885. doi:10.1111/cbdd.13793