Gregory Stephen Xavier Edward Jefferis is a British

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

known for his work on the circuit basis of olfactory perception in the vinegar fly,

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (the taxonomic order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the " vinegar fly" or " pomace fly". Starting with ...

. He is a tenured Programme Leader at the

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) is a research institute in Cambridge, England, involved in the revolution in molecular biology which occurred in the 1950–60s. Since then it has remained a major medical r ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

(UK) and associated with the Department of Zoology at the

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 ...

Education

Jefferis studied Natural Sciences at the

, graduating with a BA from

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. Th ...

in 1998. He was awarded a PhD in Neurosciences for his work on the 'Wiring specificity in the olfactory system of ''Drosophila in 2003, supervised by

Liqun Luo Liqun Luo (; born January 1966) is a neuroscientist in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, where he is the Ann and Bill Swindells Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical I ...

at Stanford University.

Career and contributions to science

Jefferis has made significant contributions to our understanding of how

neural circuit A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Neural circuits interconnect to one another to form large scale brain networks. Biological neural networks have inspired th ...

s process sensory information and transform it into behavior. His PhD uncovered principles of brain development using the olfactory system of the vinegar fly,

. He found that central neurons in the brain are pre-specified to form connections with specific incoming sensory neurons. Surprisingly, central dendrites can target independently of incoming sensory axons, suggesting a principle of independent coarse maps refined by contact-mediated matching. Returning to Cambridge in 2004 as a Wellcome research fellow, Jefferis combined genetic single cell labelling and image registration to build a 3D atlas of higher olfactory centers in Drosophila, showing that odors of different behavioral significance are spatially segregated. Jefferis joined the Neurobiology Division at the

as a tenure-track Programme Leader in 2008 and was awarded tenure in 2014. His group, in collaboration with

Barry Dickson Barry J. Dickson (born 14 August 1962) is an Australian neurobiologist who studies the development of neuronal networks in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Dickson is a group leader at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medic ...

, generated the first comprehensive description of circuit-level sex differences in the fly brain, overturning the prevailing view that sex-specific behaviors originated from largely isomorphic circuitry. His group subsequently showed that higher-order olfactory neurons form a bidirectional switch that sex-specifically routes pheromone signals. Jefferis' group has also made significant efforts in the development of experimental and computational tools for circuit mapping. He is also a principal investigator of th
Virtual Fly Brain
online resource. In 2016, he was the lead applicant of a

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glax ...

Collaborative Award that is using EM

connectomics Connectomics is the production and study of connectomes: comprehensive maps of connections within an organism's nervous system. More generally, it can be thought of as the study of neuronal wiring diagrams with a focus on how structural connectivi ...

to study the neural circuit basis of memory storage and retrieval; this established th
Drosophila Connectomics
group at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. He has also receive
Starting
an
Consolidator
grants from the

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientif ...

Awards and honors

Jefferis has received numerous awards through his career. For his PhD work, Jefferis received a Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award of the

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, formerly known as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and also known as Fred Hutch or The Hutch, is a cancer research institute established in 1975 in Seattle, Washington. History The center grew out ...

in 2003 and was selected to deliver the Elkins Memorial lecture at the Neurobiology of Drosophila Meeting in

Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Huntington, in Suffolk County, on the North Shore of Long Island in New York. As of the 2010 United States census, the CDP population was 5,070. History Cold Spr ...

. In 2012, Jefferis was appointed to th
EMBO Young Investigator Programme
and in 2016 was elected to th
FENS Kavli Network of Excellence
In 2018, he was announced as the winner of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

'
Francis Crick Medal and Lecture
“for his fundamental discoveries concerning the development and functional logic of sensory information processing”.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferis, Gregory Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British neuroscientists Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Stanford University alumni