Prof. Fiona Doetsch

Workplace: Biozentrum, University of Basel

Link(s): Group's webpage, Twitter

Biography: Fiona Doetsch obtained her B.Sc. at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and her Ph.D. at Rockefeller University in New York City, USA. She was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies and joined Columbia University as faculty in 2003. In 2014, she moved to the Biozentrum, University of Basel in Switzerland where she is Professor of Molecular Stem Cell Biology. She is a member of EMBO, and has received several awards including the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, the Irma T. Hirschl Scholar Award, the Harold and Golden Lamport Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research and an ERC Advanced Grant.

Current activities/ scientific goals: Stem cells in the adult mammalian brain give rise to new neurons and glia throughout life. They reside in specialized microenvironments, or niches, and dynamically integrate and respond to different inputs. We are investigating the diversity of adult neural stem cells and their lineages, how intrinsic and extrinsic signals regulate stem cell quiescence and activation, and the role of long-range signals and physiological states, including signals from the cerebrospinal fluid, the vasculature and neural circuits, in regulating functionally different pools of stem cells.