Claudio Daniel Stern

File:Claudio Stern.jpg

Claudio Stern

Claudio Daniel Stern FSB, FMedSci, FRS (born 9 February 1954 Montevideo, Uruguay) is a British biologist currently at University College London (UCL) who has made major contributions to developmental biology. He is the J Z Young Professor of Anatomy and was head of the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology from 2001-2011. He was President of the International Society of Developmental Biologists (ISDB) from 2010-2013.

Education

Stern received his primary (Escuela Evaristo Ciganda) and secondary (Liceo Suarez and Lycée Français) education in Montevideo, Uruguay, and started to study Medicine in 1971. In 1972 he moved to the United Kingdom and took a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences at the University of Sussex, where he remained for his PhD (1978), under the supervision of Brian Goodwin. He then moved to the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London for postdoctoral training with Ruth Bellairs, a noted embryologist.

Career

Following his postdoc training, Stern held a University Demonstrator-ship in Anatomy at the University of Cambridge (1984–85) before being appointed Lecturer in the Department of Human Anatomy at the University of Oxford, and Student (College Fellow) of Christ Church (1985-1994). In 1994 he was recruited as Chairman of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University in New York. He returned to the UK in 2001 as the "J Z Young" Professor and Head of the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology back at University College London. Among many activities he is currently a member of Scientific Council of Institut Pasteur in Paris (since 2012) and was President of the International Society of Developmental Biologists (ISDB) from January 2010- December 2013.

Stern's research is on the processes that establish cell diversity and pattern at early stages of development in vertebrate embryos. He mainly uses chick embryos as a model system but with the aim of uncovering general principles applicable to all higher animals including humans. Some of the questions addressed are: how do cells in the embryo know what fates to adopt, at the right positions and at the right time? What mechanisms ensure that the correct proportions of cells are allocated to different organs? He has made important discoveries including that the segmentation of the peripheral nervous system (spinal nerves) is determined by the neighbouring tissues, called somites (with Roger Keynes, 1984), that the forebrain has a segmented structure (1993), discovery of the first genes specifying the differences between left and right sides of the body (with Cliff Tabin, 1995) and mechanisms that control embryo polarity and twinning (2002), neural induction (2012) and somite formation (2014).

Among his recreations are gastronomy and playing Renaissance and Baroque music woodwind instruments.

Honours

Stern was awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) in Physiological Sciences from the University of Oxford (1993) and has been elected a Fellow of the Society of Biology (FSB) (2008), of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) (2001), of the Royal Society (FRS) (2008), a member of EMBO (2002) and of the Academia Europaea (2013), and Foreign Member (Miembro Correspondiente) of the Latin-American Academy of Sciences] (ACAL) (2002) and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). In 2006 he was awarded the Waddington Medal of the British Society for Developmental Biology. He has also given numerous plenary, keynote and named lectures at international meetings.

Publications

Stern has published about 200 scientific articles and several books including an important comprehensive book about Gastrulation, "Gastrulation: from cells to embryo" (2004) and the widely used laboratory manual "Essential Developmental Biology: a practical approach" (with Peter W. H. Holland, 1993).