21st Century
The Oxford Centre for Gene Function was opened as a wing of the Sherrington Building in 2000, to facilitate the Department’s on-going strengths in functional genetics. Richard Attenborough was present at the opening of the centre.
Richard Attenborough opening the Oxford Centre for Gene Function in 2000 and the Centre today
In 2005, the Burdon Sanderson Cardiac Centre was established in a purpose-built wing of the Sherrington Building. Directed by Deputy Head of Department Professor Manuela Zaccolo, it is dedicated to the science of normal and abnormal cardiac function. The aims of the centre are to understand the physiology of the heart at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels, and the neural control of cardiac activity.
British Heart Foundation awardees standing in the Burdon Sanderson Cardiac Sciences Centre
The Medical Sciences Division merged the Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics and the University Laboratory of Physiology to create the single Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics in 2006. The merger enabled the new Department to consolidate the research activities of the two former departments and created opportunities for new research alignments.
The Department has had particular strengths in cell physiology, development & cell biology, neuroscience, metabolism & endocrinology, cardiac sciences, and functional genomics.
© Mathilda Mommersteeg
The developing fish heart
In 2007, Gero Miesenböck was appointed Waynflete Professor of Physiology, a position he still holds today. He is known as the founder of optogenetics, meaning that he was the first scientist to modify nerve cells genetically so that their electrical activity could be controlled with light.
© Wikipedia
Gero Miesenböck
The Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour was opened in the Tinsley Building on Mansfield Road in 2011. The Centre is directed by Professor Miesenböck, and continues his work of optogenetics on fruit flies, where physical events in nerve cells can be linked to higher brain function more easily than in other animals, in which either the behaviour is too simple or the brain structures are too complex. The aim therefore of the centre is to understand how intelligence emerges from such physical events in nerve cells.
© Wolf Huetteroth
Rewarding (green) and motivating (blue) dopamine neurons both innervate the fly mushroom bodies (grey)
As part of its ongoing re-organisation, the Department established a Centre for Integrative Neuroscience in 2018, which is located in the east wing of the Sherrington Building and extends into the adjacent Centre for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology. Former Head of Department and Waynflete Professor of Physiology Sir Colin Blakemore was here to pull the curtain on the commemorative plaque. The Centre is directed by Professor Andrew King and a major focus will be the multidisciplinary study of mammalian neural circuits, to complement the fly-based research in the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour.
Today, the Department continues to empower discovery in the physiological sciences; its innovative and internationally-renowned research intends to improve health as well as educate the next generation of doctors and scientists. Our wide-reaching research demonstrates our interdisciplinary commitment: from embryonic development, to the physiological processes of certain diseases, such as Parkinson’s Disease, to the way in which the brain understands information from our senses.
© Garcia Moreno
© Richard Wade Martins
© Francis Szele
Cerebral cortex, Parkinson's Disease, and the part of the brain that understands the information from our sense of smell