Professor Andrea H Brand is Frederick L. Ehrman Professor and Chair, Department of Cell Biology and Director, Regenerative Medicine Institute, NYU Grossman School of Medicine. BA: Oxford University; PhD: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, U. Cambridge (Kim Nasmyth); two postdocs at Harvard (Mark Ptashne and Norbert Perrimon). After that: Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow at the Gurdon Institute, U. Cambridge; Director of Research in Developmental Neurobiology (2003); Senior Group Leader (2005); Herchel Smith Professor in Molecular Biology (2007); Royal Society Darwin Trust Research Professor (2015); Head of Wellcome Trust Laboratories, Gurdon Institute (2015-2022).

Awards: Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award (2006); William Bate Hardy Prize (2004), Hooke Medal, British Society of Cell Biology (2002); Special Award of Excellence, Wellcome Biomedical Imaging Awards (2001). Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (2010), Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2003), member of EMBO (2000).

Her lab studies the genetic networks that regulate the transition from a multipotent neural stem cell to a specialised neuronal or glial cell type, and those that direct cellular regeneration. With sufficient knowledge of these networks, it should be possible to manipulate stem cells to proliferate, to remain quiescent, or to differentiate into specialised, predefined, cell types at will.