Brigid Hogan pioneered techniques for exploring the molecular and genetic basis of embryonic development and patterning in the mouse. Using transgenic and gene-targeted mouse lines, tissue transplantation, and in vitro culture techniques, her lab identified key signalling pathways that direct the development of several organs systems, including the eye, kidney, germ cells and lung, from undifferentiated progenitor cell populations.

More recently, her lab has focused on the mechanisms controlling the process of ‘branching morphogenesis’, by which the epithelial and mesenchymal tissues of the simple lung primordia give rise to the tree-like airways and terminal alveoli of the neonatal lung. Her lab has also identified stem cells present in the adult lung and studies how they repair local tissue after damage and how defective repair promotes fibrosis.

Brigid is a leading advocate of the use of embryonic stem cells in research and helped to prepare the prescient and influential 1994 report of the US National Institutes of Health Human Embryo Research Panel.