James Sharpe

James Sharpe entered biology from a passion about computer programming and electronics, wondering: How is the complexity of life encoded in our genes? After his Biology degree at Oxford University (1991), he pursued in a PhD in developmental genetics at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (1997). Then, during his postdoc at the Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, he invented a new technology, called Optical Projection Tomography, which allows tissues and organs to be imaged in 3D (2002). Since that time he has been building dynamic computer models of limb development, which his research group continues to pursue since moving to the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona (2006), where James is now the coordinator of the Systems Biology Program.