Dennis Bray is an active

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. His group is also part of the Oxford Centre for Integrative Systems Biology. After a first career in

Neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...

, working on cell growth and movement, Dennis Bray moved in Cambridge to develop computational models of

cell signaling In biology, cell signaling (cell signalling in British English) or cell communication is the ability of a cell to receive, process, and transmit signals with its environment and with itself. Cell signaling is a fundamental property of all cellula ...

, in particular in relation to bacterial

chemotaxis Chemotaxis (from '' chemo-'' + ''taxis'') is the movement of an organism or entity in response to a chemical stimulus. Somatic cells, bacteria, and other single-cell or multicellular organisms direct their movements according to certain chemica ...

. On 3 November 2006 he was awarded the Microsoft European Science Award for his work on

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

Books

*''Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell'' (2009) , *''Essential Cell Biology'' (2003) (with Bruce Alberts, Karen Hopkin, Alexander Jonhson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, Peter Walter) , *''Cell Movements: From Molecules to Motility'' (2000) , *''Essential Cell Biology: An Introduction to the Molecular Biology of the Cell'' (1997) (with Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, Peter Walter) , *''Molecular Biology of the Cell'' (3rd ed, 1994) (with Bruce Alberts, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, James D. Watson) , *''Cell Movements'' (1992) , *''Molecular Biology of the Cell'' (2nd ed, 1989) (with Bruce Alberts, Keith Roberts, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff) , *''Molecular Biology of the Cell'' (1st ed, 1982) (with Bruce Alberts, Keith Roberts, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, James D Watson) ,

Main scientific publications

* Bray D (1970) Surface movements during growth of single explanted neurons.

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scien ...

, * Bray D (1973) Model for Membrane Movements in the Neural Growth Cone.

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

, 244: 93 - 96 * Bray D, White JG (1988) Cortical flow in animal cells.

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

, 239: 883-888 * Bray D (1990) Intracellular signalling as a parallel distributed process.

Journal of Theoretical Biology The ''Journal of Theoretical Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering theoretical biology, as well as mathematical, computational, and statistical aspects of biology. Some research areas covered by the journal include cell ...

, 143: 215-231 * Bray D (1995) Protein molecules as computational elements in living cells.

, 376: 307-312 * Bray D, Levin MD, Morton-Firth CJ (1998) Receptor clustering as a cellular mechanism to control sensitivity.

, 393: 85-88

Mention in Popular Science

Professor Franklin M. Harold writes "The theme f a protein's shape and functionality being altered by interaction with its environmentcomes with numerous variations, some of which are discussed in a thought-provoking article by Dennis Bray uthor references Dr. Bray's 1995 articlethat examines proteins as information-processing devices."

References

External links

Oxford Centre for Integrative Systems Biology

Department
for Dennis Bray at

Review Article version
of Bray D (1995) Protein molecules as computational elements in living cells. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Dennis Academics of the University of Cambridge 20th-century British biologists 21st-century British biologists British neuroscientists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Systems biologists