Patricia Simpson
Patricia "Pat" Simpson FRS is a distinguished British developmental biologist. She is an Emeritus Professor of the Department of Zoology of the University of Cambridge, having previously been Professor of Comparative Embryology, and a Fellow of Newnham College. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2000.
She graduated from Universite de Paris VI, Pierre and Marie Curie University.
She is distinguished for her work on development in insects. Her first major discovery was that pattern formation and growth are regulated by the same mechanism. By a study of genetic mosaics she demonstrated that cells develop into particular structures by means of local interactions with their neighbours.
She has made major contributions to the understanding of the process of lateral inhibition, whereby initially equivalent cells interact between themselves and subsequently adopt different fates.
This process involves a conserved cellular receptor and is equally important in mammals; the work can be related to studies on human development and disease.Awards
