Dr Alfonso Martinez Arias

Alfonso Martinez Arias is a Lecturer in the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge (UK). He received his undergraduate degree from the Universidad Complutense, Madrid (Spain) and his PhD from the University of Chicago, (USA) for work on promoter analysis through gene fusions in the yeast Saccharomyces cervisiae.

Since 1983 his research interests have focused on developmental biology. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge before becoming a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow, firstly at the Department of Zoology in 1987, and since 2000, in the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge.

His work uses Drosophila melanogaster as an experimental system and is devoted to the understanding of the molecular networks used by cells to process information during embryonic development. Much of his studies have centered on the way signalling by the Notch and Wnt pathways are coordinated during the process of cell fate assignation. In addition he has contributed to the current understanding of pattern formation in Drosophila with several studies of gene activity and regulation.

He has also edited an important monographic reference on Drosophila biology ('The Development of Drosophila melanogaster', Cold Spring Harbor Press, 1993) and a textbook in which developmental biology is presented from a molecular point of view ('Molecular Principles of Animal Development', Oxford University Press, 2002).

Contact
Dr Alfonso Martinez Arias
Department of Genetics
University of Cambridge
Cambridge CB2 3EH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1223 766742
Fax: +44 (0)1223 333992
E-mail: ama11@cus.cam.ac.uk