The lecture theater at the Crick.

Crick Lecture

Gero Miesenboeck FRS

Director of Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, University of Oxford

Crick Lectures

Crick Lectures are delivered by leading internationally-renowned scientists from the Francis Crick Institute and elsewhere and cover the full spectrum of biomedical research. They aim to be relatively accessible to scientists in all biomedical disciplines, whilst also offering something for the specialist.

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Title: Light Sleep

Gero Miesenböck is Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at the University of Oxford.

Professor Miesenböck is known as the founder of optogenetics, being the first scientist to modify nerve cells genetically to produce light-responsive pigments. He was also the first to use the technique of optogenetics to remote-control the behaviour of an animal, which he had bred to contain light-sensitive nerve cells in its brain.

From this, Miesenböck has won several awards; including The Beckman Young Investigators Award (2001), InBev-Baillet Latour International Health Prize (2012) and The Brain Prize (2013). 

Miesenböck was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2008, a member of the Academy of Medical Science, United Kingdom in 2012, the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2014 and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2016.