Andrea Brand facts for kids

Andrea Hilary Brand (born March 9, 1959) is a leading scientist in molecular biology. She is a professor at the University of Cambridge. She leads a research lab that studies how the nervous system develops.

Dr. Brand is famous for helping create the GAL4/UAS system. This is a special tool used by scientists to study genes in fruit flies. It's so useful that some call it "a fly geneticist's Swiss army knife."

Early Life and Learning

Andrea Brand was born in the United States. Her father worked for the United Nations in New York City.

She went to the UN International School in New York. In 1977, she was inspired by the work of scientist Rosalind Franklin. This led her to move to Britain to study biochemistry at the University of Oxford.

She studied at Oxford from 1977 to 1981. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree there. After Oxford, she went to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge. She completed her Ph.D. in 1986.

Science Career and Discoveries

Early Research Work

After her Ph.D., Dr. Brand did more research at Harvard University. From 1986 to 1988, she studied how genes are turned on and off in yeast.

Later, she decided to switch her focus from biochemistry to neurobiology. This is the study of the nervous system. In the late 1980s, she joined Norbert Perrimon's lab at Harvard Medical School.

It was there that Dr. Brand came up with the idea for the GAL4 system. This amazing tool lets scientists turn on specific genes in any cell type. They can also choose when to turn them on during development. This helps them understand what genes and proteins do.

The GAL4 system has been incredibly important for studying fruit flies. It has even been used to create models of diseases like Alzheimer's disease. This helps scientists learn more about these conditions.

Work at the Gurdon Institute

From 1993 to 2003, Dr. Brand was a senior researcher at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute. She became a Senior Group Leader there in 2005. Since 2007, she has been a professor of Molecular Biology.

At the Gurdon Institute, Dr. Brand has done important work on how the nervous system develops. She uses fruit flies to study neural stem cells. These are special cells that can become different types of neurons (brain cells) and glial cells (support cells).

Her research helps us understand how neurons can repair themselves after damage. This could lead to new ways to treat brain disorders. These include diseases like Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease.

Dr. Brand explains her work like this: "One main goal in neurobiology is to fix or regrow neurons after brain or spinal cord damage. But first, we need to understand how the nervous system is built. It's the most complex part of the human body, with over a trillion neurons."

She adds, "Neurons are made by stem cells. Neural stem cells divide and create new cells that become different types of neurons. Our goal is to find the genes that control these cells. If we can do that, we might be able to make stem cells become specific neurons when we want them to."

Her earlier work also helped identify the first "transcriptional silencer." This is a part of DNA that can turn genes off. The GAL4 system she created has been used in many other organisms, not just fruit flies. It has greatly influenced the study of how living things develop.

Dr. Brand has published many scientific papers. Her work appears in journals like Cell, Development, and Journal of Neuroscience.

Other Activities

Dr. Brand has also been involved in many other scientific activities. She has served on advisory boards for companies and research groups. She has also been on editorial boards for scientific journals.

She was a visiting professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. She also visited the University of Sydney in Australia. She helped choose the winner of the Royal Society Young People's Book Prize in 2012.

Awards and Honors

Dr. Andrea Brand has received many important awards for her scientific work. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. She is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

In 2006, she received the Rosalind Franklin Award from the Royal Society. This award celebrates excellent scientific research. It also helps encourage women in science and engineering. Dr. Brand was chosen for her amazing work in gene regulation and neurobiology.

When she received the award, Dr. Brand said she was "truly honoured." She shared that she was inspired to become a molecular biologist at age 15. This was after reading about Rosalind Franklin's work on DNA.

As part of the award, Dr. Brand organized two lecture series. These featured successful female scientists. One series was for schoolchildren, and the other was for university students.

She also received the Hooke Medal in 2002 and the William Bate Hardy Prize in 2004.

Personal Life

Andrea Brand has loved dancing her whole life. She learned ballet as a child. Later, she became a gymnast and was team captain at Oxford University. She even spent two weeks dancing seven hours a day with a professional dance company!