Dr. Francis Szele

Biography

Francis Szele is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in the USA with a major in Biology and worked in the laboratory of Dennis Murphy at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, studying serotonergic control of endocrine responses (1985-1987). He earned his PhD in 1994 at the University of Pennsylvania under the guidance of Marie-Francoise Chesselet, where his research focused on increased neurogenesis following brain injury. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Connie Cepko’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School (1994-1999), where he utilized complex retroviral vectors to investigate lineage relationships and migration patterns in the developing chick forebrain. After establishing his laboratory at Northwestern University in Chicago (1999-2007), Dr. Szele focused on the subventricular zone and, in collaboration with Phil Hockberger's group, developed 2-photon time-lapse imaging methods to study cell migration. Since joining the University of Oxford in 2007, he has been a co-Head of OxStem Neuro, continuing his research in developmental biology and the mechanisms regulating stem cell behavior and neurogenesis in neuropsychiatric diseases.

Research Interests

Experience