Who's Who in Clock Research

A number of scientists associated with HHMI are studying how biological clocks are regulated and the physiological processes that they influence.

Michael Rosbash, Ph.D.
HHMI investigator, professor of biology at Brandeis University, and adjunct professor of molecular biology at Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Rosbash and his research group have done pioneering work on the molecular basis of circadian rhythms. Using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as an experimental animal, they have discovered four key circadian genes.

A biographical sketch of Dr. Rosbash http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/clocks/rosbash.html
A summary of Dr. Rosbash's research from the HHMI website
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/rosbash.html

Joseph S. Takahashi, Ph.D.
HHMI investigator, Walter and Mary Glass professor of neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University, and professor of neurology at Northwestern University Medical School

Dr. Takahashi and his research group have made groundbreaking contributions to understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the circadian clock in mammals. They discovered and cloned the first mammalian circadian gene, the mouse gene Clock.

A biographical sketch of Dr. Takahashi
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/clocks/takahashi.html
A summary of Dr. Takahashi's research from the HHMI website
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/takahashi.html

Amita Sehgal, Ph.D.
HHMI associate investigator and associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Dr. Sehgal's research team studies the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the circadian timing system. Sehgal was responsible, in collaboration with Michael Young's group, for cloning the Drosophila clock gene timeless and showing that its product, the TIM protein, interacts with the product of the period gene. More recently, Sehgal's team determined the molecular mechanism responsible for the decrease in TIM in response to light.

Dr. Sehgal's home page at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
http://www.med.upenn.edu/ins/faculty/sehgal.htm
A summary of Dr. Sehgal's work on the HHMI website
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/sehgal.html

Louis J. Ptácek, M.D.
HHMI associate investigator and associate professor of neurology and human genetics at the University of Utah

Dr. Ptácek's group studies heritable disorders of the nervous system. Last year, he discovered that a single gene is responsible for a heritable sleep disorder in humans called familial advanced sleep phase syndrome.

A summary of Dr. Ptácek's research on the HHMI website
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/ptacek.html

Elzbieta Pyza, Ph.D.
HHMI international research scholar and assistant professor at the Institute of Zoology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Dr. Pyza studies the circadian rhythms in the visual system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

Ferenc Nagy, Ph.D.
HHMI international research scholar and professor at the Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary

Dr. Nagy's group studies the components of the circadian clock in higher plants

A summary of Dr. Nagy's research on the HHMI website
http://www.hhmi.org/grants/awards/indiv/scholars/nagy.html

Ravi Allada, M.D.
HHMI physician postdoctoral fellow at Brandeis University

Dr. Allada is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of HHMI investigator Dr. Michael Rosbash. Dr. Allada's research project focuses on the molecular and genetic analysis of circadian rhythms in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

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