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Yale-UCL Senior Scientist Lecture Series, 2011

Mark MarshLMCB, MRC Cell Biology Unit & Department of Developmental Biology, UCL

School of Life and Medical Sciences

• SLMS has 2,562 members of research and academic staff.

• UCL was ranked 4th for medicine in the 2011 Guardian University guide.

• UCL has one of England’s five Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centres.

• UCL Partners is one of the UK’s five Academic Health Science Centres.

• The Medical Research Council granted UCL the largest amount of funding and highest number of awards in 2008/2009.

• In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, 70–80% of research in the Life and Medical Sciences was graded as 3* or 4*

• SLMS boasts the UK’s strongest medical research grouping (research power score, RAE 2008)

SLMS domains

BASICRESEARCH

SCIENCE

INFECT. / IMM. /

INFLAM.

REPRO & DEVELPMNT.

FRONTIER DISCIPLINES

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

PARTNERSHIPS

DISCOVERY SCIENCE

POPULATION HEALTH

EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE

EDUCATION

NEUROSCI. CANCERCARDIO

METABOLIC

UKCMRI UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation• A world-class centre for interdisciplinary

medical sciences, research and innovation

• Situated at the heart of a cluster of scientific excellence in central London

• A partnership of four of the world’s leading medical research organisations:

– Medical Research Council,– Cancer Research UK– Wellcome Trust – UCL

• Bringing together two of the country’s leading centres of medical research:

– National Institute for Medical Research– London Research Institute

UCL Faculty of Life SciencesDivision of Biomedicine

• Genetics, Evolution and Environment

• Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology

• Structural and Molecular Biology

• Cell and Developmental Biology

• Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology

Receptor/ channel/ transporter & signaling molecules:

Attwell, Beato, Cull-Candy, Dolphin, Farrant, Gibb, Kittler, Schoepfer, Sivilotti, Smart, Vergani.

Structure-function:

Millar, Sivilotti, SmartCentral synaptic transmission & glia:

Attwell, Cull-Candy, Beato, Sihra Healthy/ diseased states (channelopathies, animal

models)

Stanford, Sivilotti, Schoepfer, Smart

Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/npp/index.html

Dept has an outstanding history of research on receptors, ion channels and synaptic transmission. Highest ranked UK Department for ‘World-leading research’ RAE2008 (UoA15)

Cellular & Molecular

Neuroscience

Systems NeuroscienceNeural connectivity/ computation

Mysic-Flogel, Hausser, Silver

In vivo transfection/ optogeneticsMysic-Flogel, Hausser, Sjostrom

Systems/ translational neuroscience of pain- London Pain Consortium

Fitzgerald, Dickenson, Wood

Linking cellular/ neural networks to behaviour

Hausser, Mysic-Flogel, Sjostrom, Yeo

Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology(2)

Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology(3)

Cell signalling

G-protein coupled receptor signaling Brown, Dolphin, Pitcher, Moss,

Pedarzani, Stocker, Smart

Phospholipid-dependent & NO signaling Cockcroft, Garthwaite

Signal transduction in cardiovascular and immune systems.

Willis, Hobbs

Autonomic control of respiration & CVSGilbey, Gourine, Ramage

Major research themes• Centre for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (Claudio Stern)• Zebrafish research community - one of Europe’s largest fish research facilities, studying

many aspects of developmental biology (Steve Wilson)• Learning and Centre for Cell and Molecular Dynamic contains UCL’s core imaging facility

and houses labs which study: – Wound healing (Becker)– Circadian clocks (Whitmore)– Neural Development (Salinas)

• Neural development and spatial learning and memory studies include:– Cortical development (Parnavalas)– Wnt Signaling and synapse formation (Salinas)– Neural Crest (Major, Mirsky, Jessen)– Spatial memory and learning (O’Keefe)

Brings together more than 65 members of academic staff to study a wide range of cell and developmental problems. This includes aspects of stem cell biology, early embryo development, neural development and evolutionary (evo-devo) topics

Cell and Developmental Biology

Genetics, Evolution and Environment

GEE has several core strengths, including diversity, quantitative biology, genetics, healthy aging and graduate training.

Human Genetics and Human Evolution (UCL Genetics Institute)Bradman; Povey; Thomas; Swallow; Maniatis; Ruiz-Linares; Balding; Plagnol; Jones; Wood; MacKay

Evolution of development Telford; Bahler; Olivieri; Gems; Partridge; Smith; Lane; Wingler

Systems biology (UCL Systems Biology)Bahler; Pomiankowski; Reuter; Schuster; Partridge; Gems; Lazaros; Olivieri

Biology of Ageing (Institute of Healthy Ageing)Partridge; Gems; Foukas; Pearce; Schuster; Wingler

Evolutionary Genetics Fowler; Partridge; Greig; Pomiankowski; Yang; Reuter; Mallet; Lane; Balding; Plagnol; Jones; Bahler; Thomas

Biodiversity and environmental biology (Earth Sciences)Mallet; Day; Chatterjee; Goswami; Murrell; Telford; Pearson; Wotton; Wingler

Computational biology (R. A. Fisher Centre for Computational Biology, CoMPLEX) Pomiankowski; Murrell; Maniatis; Thomas; Yang; Reuter; Balding; Plagnol;

Chatterjee

Our strengths: Quantitative Biology

R. A. Fisher Centre for Computational Biology• population genetics, quantitative genetics, statistical inference, phylogenetics, QTL, transcriptomics

CoMPLEX• Interface maths/statistics/computation in life/medical sciences, mathematical modelling

UCL Systems Biology• Coordinating and strengthening interdisciplinary systems biology research across UCL

Genetics, Evolution and Environment (2)

Our strengths: Centres of Excellence

UCL Genetics Institute• Applying bio-statistical and bio-informatic approaches to genetic research with a focus on clinical and human population genetics

Institute of Healthy Ageing• Bringing together researchers working on the basic biology of ageing and those working to understand the causes of ageing-related diseases

Genetics, Evolution and Environment (3)

Our strengths: Graduate Training

CoMPLEX• Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology

Doctoral Training Centre• 15-20 MRes+PhD students / annum• Funded by EPSRC, MRC, BHF, BBSRC, NERC

Post-Doctoral Training Centre• Starting April 2011, in collaboration with University of Oxford and Microsoft Research

Genetics, Evolution and Environment (4)

The Department is a member of the Institute of Structural Molecular Biology (ISMB), which links UCL Departments of Chemistry and Structural and Molecular Biology, and the School of Crystallography at Birkbeck College

Major research themes:– Bioanalytical Chemistry – Bioinformatics– Cell Signalling & Metabolic Regulation – Molecular Microbiology – Molecular Cell Biology – Structural Biology & Molecular Biophysics

Structural and Molecular Biology

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MRC LABORATORY FOR MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY