Chris Q. Doe

Pioneered use of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster to study highly conserved pathways required for normal brain development. Laser ablation experiments demonstrated that neural stem cells develop from equivalence groups by a mechanism termed lateral inhibition that has been shown to function from nematodes to mammals. Characterized the mechanism of asymmetric cell division of neural stem cells, which has proven relevant to mammalian progenitors. Most recently, launched a pioneering the study of how neural stem cells make a series of different neurons, and how neural progenitors lose competence or age over time. Published in Science, Nature and Cell as well as many more specialized development and neuroscience journals, and served on multiple National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation study sections.