Alexander Schier

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITION:
Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences

EDUCATION:
Dr Schier was educated in Switzerland, where he did both his undergraduate work and PhD at the University of Basel. After receiving his doctorate in cell biology in 1992, Dr Schier spent 1992-1996 doing postdoctoral research at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University. In 1996, he joined the Developmental Genetics Program at NYU School of Medicine’s Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, where he became a tenured associate professor in 2001. He recently joined Harvard University as professor of molecular and cellular biology.

AWARDS:
• Irma T Hirschl Career Scientist Award (2001-2005)
• American Heart Association Established Investigator (2002-2005)
• HW Mossman Developmental Biologist Award 2006
• McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award (2006-2008)

EDITORIAL POSITIONS:
Editorial Advisory Board of AAA’s Developmental Dynamics

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Our research addresses three questions:

(i) what is the molecular basis of embryogenesis?
(ii) how does an organism sense potentially harmful stimuli?
(iii) what are the genes and circuits that regulate sleep and wakefulness?

We mainly use zebrafish as a model system, because genetic and imaging approaches can be combined to study complex behaviors and developmental processes in a vertebrate.

HOME PAGE
http://www.hms.harvard.edu/dms/neuroscience/fac/schier.html