Gregory Jefferis studies the neural circuit basis of behaviour using the nervous system of the fruit fly, Drosophila, as a model. His research spans the developmental and organisational logic of brain wiring, moving from the resolution of individual synaptic connections between neurons to brain-spanning circuits.
Greg’s group was the first to uncover a sex-specific switch in neuronal connectivity and information flow in an animal brain. Recent work has combined synaptic resolution wiring diagrams (connectomes) with in vivo physiology and behaviour to understand the interaction between learned and innate behaviour. They also build brain mapping tools and resources with a lead role in delivering the first connectomes for both the complete brain and nerve cord of an adult animal, amounting to over 160,000 neurons and 100 million connections.
Greg is joint head of the Neurobiology Division at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He is also a Director of Research in the University of Cambridge Department of Zoology. Greg studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge before obtaining a Neuroscience PhD at Stanford in 2003 advised by Liqun Luo. He returned to Cambridge as a research fellow of St John’s College before taking up his LMB position in 2008. In 2019 he was awarded the Royal Society’s Francis Crick Medal.
Professional position
- Joint Head, Neurobiology Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
- Director of Research, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge
Awards
-
Francis Crick Medal and Lecture
for his fundamental discoveries concerning the development and functional logic of sensory information processing.
