David J. Anderson (born 1956) is an American neurobiologist. He is a

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

investigator. His lab is located at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, where he currently holds the position of Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Leadership Chair and Director, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience. Anderson is a founding adviser of the Allen Institute for Brain Research, a non-profit research institute funded by the late Paul G. Allen, and spearheaded the Institute's early effort to generate a comprehensive map of gene expression in the mouse brain. He is the author of ''The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis'' with Caltech neuroscientist Ralph Adolfs. Anderson received an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1986, the 1999 Alden Spencer Award from Columbia University, and a Paul G. Allen Distinguished Investigator Award in 2010. In 2017, he won the 17th Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize and in 2018, he won the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience.

Research

Anderson's work (mid 1980s–early 2000s) focused on the development and function of the nervous system, particularly the mechanism of fate determination of

neural stem cells Neural stem cells (NSCs) are self-renewing, multipotent cells that firstly generate the radial glial progenitor cells that generate the neurons and glia of the nervous system of all animals during embryonic development. Some neural progenitor ste ...

. His laboratory's current focus is to dissect genes and neural circuits underlying innate behaviors and associated emotion states, such as fear and aggression. At Caltech, Anderson has overseen projects such as studying aggression in fruit flies. He has also studied the mechanisms of fear and touch, and the neural activity in the brains of mice during social behaviors such as mating and aggression.

Positions

He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2002. In 2007, he was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. Anderson was trained by two

Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...

Gunter Blobel Gunter or Günter may refer to: * Gunter rig, a type of rig used in sailing, especially in small boats * Gunter Annex, Alabama, a United States Air Force installation * Gunter, Texas, city in the United States People Surname * Chris Gunter ( ...

and

Richard Axel Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is an American molecular biologist and university professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His work on the olfactory system won hi ...

Select Publications

Books

References

External links

Anderson's profile on HHMI website

Anderson's profile at Caltech

The David Anderson Research Group website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, David J. 1956 births American neuroscientists California Institute of Technology faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Place of birth missing (living people) Rockefeller University alumni