Irene Miguel-Aliaga

Irene has an interest in the crosstalk between organs – in particular, how and why the intestine communicates with other organs, such as the brain. Her lab was one of the first to tackle the study of the brain-gut axis using the powerful genetics of Drosophila, work that they have now extended to mouse and human models.

Irene and her team discovered that the brain-gut axes of males and females are very different, and that these intestinal sex differences impact food intake, gamete production and tumour susceptibility. They have also investigated how the intestine senses nutrients, revealing unexpected roles for metal sensing in the regulation of feeding and growth.

Irene trained as a biochemist in Barcelona, Spain and received her PhD in Genetics from the University of Oxford (UK). She investigated how neurons develop during postdoctoral work at Harvard (USA), Linköping University (Sweden) and NIMR (UK). 

Irene established her own research group in Cambridge in 2008. In 2012 she moved to the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences, Imperial College London, where she became a Professor of Genetics and Physiology and MRC Investigator. She joined the Crick as a Principal Group Leader in January 2024.

Irene was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2019 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022. She was elected to the EMBO YIP programme in 2012 and to EMBO in 2017. She was also awarded the Genetics Society Mary Lyon Medal in 2022 and a Suffrage Science Women in Science award in 2018. Irene has been awarded three ERC Grants. 
 

See Irene's publications