Summary

Jim Smith began his career as a developmental biologist, studying the mechanisms by which cells in the embryo come to form the right kind of specialised cell type in the right place. He focussed on the development of the frog Xenopus laevis, where he identified some of the signals that direct this cell differentiation. He also showed that these signals act in a concentration-dependent fashion, and he investigated their modes of action. The work was interesting in its own right, but it also proved that the lessons one learns from the developing frog embryo also apply to human stem cells. With his colleague Dr Andreia Bernardo, Jim has most recently shown how human stem cells can be directed to form homogeneous populations of muscle cells specific to the left ventricle of the heart. He hopes these cells will be of use in drug screening and regenerative medicine.

Biography

Jim Smith is a developmental biologist who served as Director of the Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research, where he helped establish the Francis Crick Institute. He has been Director of Research Programmes at Wellcome and is now President of the Zoological Society of London.