Patricia Simpson facts for kids
Patricia "Pat" Simpson is a famous British scientist. She studies how living things grow and develop. This field is called developmental biology. She used to be a professor at the University of Cambridge. She is now an Emeritus Professor there. This means she is retired but still connected to the university. She also belongs to Newnham College. In 2000, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very high honor for scientists.
Patricia Simpson earned her PhD in 1976. She got it from the Universite de Paris VI, which is now part of Pierre and Marie Curie University.
What She Studies
Patricia Simpson is very interested in how living things work. She also studies how they change over time (evolution). And she looks at how they interact with their environment (ecology). She is especially known for her work on insects. She studies how they grow and change.
Fruit Fly Research
Her research looks at tiny hairs called bristles on fruit flies. She studies how these bristles form a specific pattern. Her first big discovery was about these fly bristles. She found that how they grow and their pattern are controlled by the same thing. She used special fruit flies to study this. She showed that cells become different parts by talking to their neighbors.
How Cells Talk
She also helped us understand something called lateral inhibition. This is a process where cells start out the same. Then they talk to each other. After talking, they decide to become different things. This process uses a special part of a cell called a cellular receptor. This receptor helps cells receive messages. This process is important in many animals, even humans. Her work helps us understand human growth and diseases.
Awards and Honors
Patricia Simpson has received many important awards:
- 1993: She won the Silver medal from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifque in France.
- 1993: She became a member of the EMBO. This is a group for top life scientists.
- 2000: She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
- 2008: She received the Waddington Medal. This award is from the British Society of Developmental Biology.
- 2012: She became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- 2016: She received an Honorary Fellowship from Newnham College, Cambridge.
