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Florian Merkle obtained his bachelor's degree in biology from the California Institute of Technology and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco, where he studied the lineage potential of adult neural stem cells in the mouse brain. He pioneered the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into hypothalamic neurons and was an early adopter of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing techniques in hPSCs. After completing his postdoctoral training at Harvard University, he joined the Institute of Metabolic Science (IMS) at the University of Cambridge in 2015 as a New Blood Fellow. Florian has received several prestigious awards, including the Sir Henry Dale Fellowship and the Ben Barres Fellowship. His research focuses on the mechanistic basis of obesity and neurological diseases, using hPSC-derived cellular models and animal models to develop effective treatments. He has published extensively in leading journals such as Nature, Science, and Cell Stem Cell, with a citation record exceeding 10,000. He is actively involved in mentoring early career researchers and organizing programs to support underrepresented groups in life sciences.
University of Cambridge • Cambridge
Contributes to research on obesity and neurological diseases using stem cell technologies.
Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge • Cambridge
Developed novel hPSC differentiation techniques and studied human appetite-regulatory neurons.
Standard postgraduate requirements for Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and related humanities departments.