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June 2025
Looking forward to unveiling our latest research on new tools for cell-type specific labelling and imaging of metabolites at the ISSCR 2025, taking place in Hong Kong on 11-14 June 2025. Register here. |
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October 2024
In our latest preprint, Lena Lampe, Clare Newell and colleagues figured out how metamorphosing Drosophila avoid drying out. The larva makes a lipid barrier of hyper-long hydrocarbons (>C27 and longer) and stores it in the fat body until needed by the pupa. |
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September 2024
Sebastian Sorge in our preprint led on this amazing new chemically defined (holidic) diet for fast larval growth & development in Drosophila. It’s called HoldFast, soon to be available to the community, in powdered form, from the Vienna Drosophila Resource Center (VDRC). |
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June 2024
Recent Workshop on Quantum Technologies for Life Sciences and Health, organised by Ian Gilmore and others from the National Physical Laboratory. We shared new cryo-MSI work by Clare Newell and Yuhong Jin. Presenting to quantum physicists is definitely a first for our lab! Quantum detectors here we come… |
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April 2024
Our friend and colleague Jean-Paul Vincent is awarded the Waddington Medal of the British Society for Developmental Biology. Wise words from JP. |
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October 2023
At the European Drosophila Research Conference in Lyons with the lab (and 900 fellow Drosophilists) |
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Andrew Bailey contributed stable isotope tracing to this glioblastoma study from the Parinello lab
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March 2023
Clare Newell contributed mass spec imaging to this sucralose study from the Vousden lab |
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July 2022
Alex and lab alumnus Irene Miguel-Aliaga both become Fellows of the Royal Society |
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June 2022
Awesome EMBO fly workshop in Crete. Alex with four of our lab alumni PIs. Cédric Maurange, Rita Sousa-Nunes, Irene Miguel-Aliaga and Louise Cheng (L to R) |
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May 2022
Congratulations to Patricia Serpente on our first paper on organ sparing in mice: Quantification of fetal organ sparing in maternal low-protein dietary models https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/6-218/v2 |
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May 2022
Celebrating 5 years at the Crick |
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MAY 2022
Congratulations to Lena Lampe (third from left), ECR prizewinner at the 2022 Rank Prize Symposium on Nutrition and Ageing. |
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MAY 2022
Alex and two colleagues at the Crick are elected as Fellows of the Royal Society |
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MAY 2022
Congratulations to Eva Islimye on PhD graduation from Imperial College London |
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APRIL 2022
Our review on Lipid Droplets in the Nervous System is out in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology |
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OCT 2021
Just held our lab retreat in Kent. Rose, Thorn, and Bud was a great interactive way to get the wider perspective on every one’s project. Also plenty of time for fun and games, including mastering the weird and wonderful rules of cricket |
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SEP 2021
Huge thanks to the Wellcome Trust for funding our new 5 year technology development collaboration with Lucy Collinson at the Crick and with Greg McMahon and Ian Gilmore on super-resolution cryogenic chemical imaging. |
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MAY 2021
Launch of the European Drosophila Society A NEW central resource for the European fly community which supports community initiatives and oversees the organisation of the biennial European Drosophila Research Conference. You are all warmly invited to sign up and get your labs on the interactive map at: https://europeandrosophilasociety.org |
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MAY 2021
Ola Lubojemska’s paper now out at PLOS Biology shows how the lipid droplet enzyme ATGL protects Drosophila renal cells from the damaging effects of a high fat diet. Ola and Alex contribute to a Crick News Feature on how powerful Drosophila genetics can be used to discover how lipid droplets protect renal and other cells from metabolic stresses. |
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SEPTEMBER 2020
Congratulations to Adrien Franchet, named researcher on a new project grant to build An atlas of the stressed fly brain |
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AUGUST 2020
Congratulations to Clare Newell on her Cryogenic OrbiSIMS paper now out at Angewandte Chemie with more info on the Crick and National Physical Laboratory websites. Cryo-OrbiSIMS, a new imaging technique developed by Crick and NPL researchers, is able to precisely image lipids and other molecules in samples, even revealing otherwise-invisible chemicals in a human fingerprint |
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JUNE 2020
The Crete Drosophila EMBO Workshop 2020 was a big success in virtual format, congrats to the organisers. |
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MARCH 2020
Coronavirus cancels multiple meetings. Our lab trip to BSDB/GenSoc2020 in Warwick was cancelled, as well as Alex’s plenary talk at The Allied Genetics Conference 2020 in Washington DC. |
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JANUARY 2020
Congratulations to Ying Zhang who starts her Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship on "Mechanisms of stress-induced brain sparing during development” |
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DECEMBER 2019
Clare Newell’s preprint on a new cryogenic method for mass spectrometry imaging is now out at BioRxiv. |
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OCTOBER 2019
Congratulations to Clare Newell on winning a Young Scientist Award at the 22nd International Conference on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS-22) in Kyoto. |
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SEPTEMBER 2019
Sebastian Sorge presents at the European Drosophila Research Conference (EDRC 2019) in Lausanne. |
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APRIL 2019
Thari and Paul have improved our method for measuring absolute metabolite concentrations in tiny samples of unknown volume. J Proteome Res. 2019 |
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APRIL 2019
Pany has a collaborative paper with Louise Cheng’s lab on why some neural tumours are more reliant than others on dietary histidine. EMBO J. 2019 |
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FEBRUARY 2019
The 1st Crick-Beddington Developmental Biology Symposium will take place at the Francis Crick Institute in London on 4-5 February 2019. More information |
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JANUARY 2019
Annick & Alex preview the latest paper on Growth-Blocking Peptides from the Leopold lab in Dev Cell: "Two Negatives Make a Positive for Insulin Secretion and Growth" |
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JULY 2018
Congratulations to Clare Newell, a joint student with us at the Crick and the National Physical Laboratory, who won the UKSAF Young Surface Analyst Seah Prize for the best Oral and Poster presentation on “3D OrbiSIMS imaging of Drosophila cuticular lipids”. |
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MARCH 2018
Early-life exposure to low-dose oxidants can increase longevity via microbiome remodelling in Drosophila. Congratulations to Fumiaki and Clara on their new paper in Nature Communications. |
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DECEMBER 2017
Congratulations to André Eid on his EMBO Long Term Fellowship for postdoctoral research in the lab. |
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NOVEMBER 2017
Discussion of developmental nutrition and lifespan with Alex, interviewed by Georgia Mills of “The Naked Scientists” for BBC Radio 5 Live on 26th November 2017. |
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NOVEMBER 2017
Low protein diet in early life increases lifespan in fruit flies. Congratulations to Irina on her new paper in Nature Communications. More Details on The Crick website. |
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OCTOBER 2017
Brain sex makes females bigger than males. Congratulations to Annick on her new paper in PLoS Biology (recommended in F1000Prime) and for Biomedical Picture of the Day-BPoD. |
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OCTOBER 2017
Congratulations to Fumiaki Obata, who leaves the lab with an AMED-PRIME grant and a new PI job in the Dept of Genetics, University of Tokyo. |
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OCTOBER 2017
The European Drosophila Research Conference (EDRC2017) saw 800 delegates converging on London from all over the world. To view photos of the event |
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SEPTEMBER 2017
More than you needed to know about lipid droplets? A new review by Michael Welte and Alex Gould: Lipid droplet functions beyond energy storage. Work published in BBA - Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids (free pdf until 31/10/17) |
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AUGUST 2017
Postle and Gould labs collaborate on new techniques for measuring the dynamics of lipid metabolism using electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Published in BA Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids |
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JUNE 2017
18th International Congress of Developmental Biology in Singapore: Irina Stefana and Alex share with their ISDB colleagues how to "cope with a stressful start in life". More details |
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JUNE 2017
Alex gives the Plenary Lecture at the 2017 Swiss Drosophila meeting in Bern. |
Swiss selfie with Beat Suter and a (tiny) Eiger in the distance
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MAY 2017
Ola, Fumiaki and Alex give presentations and posters at the EMBO | EMBL Symposia "Metabolism in Time and Space: Emerging Links to Cellular and Developmental Programs" in Heidelberg. More details |
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MAY 2017
The whole lab join forces to talk and present posters at the BSCB/BSDB/Gen Soc Spring meeting in Warwick. Link to the BSDB |
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OCTOBER 2016
We have left our historic building of the former MRC National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill. Our new lab is now located in the brand new Francis Crick Institute building next to St Pancras station in central London. |
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AUGUST 2016
Einat, Rami and Annick's paper, Drosophila Spidey/Kar Regulates Oenocyte Growth via PI3-Kinase Signaling, is published in PLoS Genetics. They identify a new regulator of the lipid-metabolising enzyme phosphoinositide 3-kinase. More Details on The Crick website. |
Oenocytes in the fruit fly larva© Credit: Annick Sawala and Alex Gould.
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.JULY 2016
Lipid droplets cited over Snowmass, Colorado: "Lipid droplets: Dynamic organelles in metabolism and beyond". More details of Alex and the other speakers. |
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JULY 2016
Annick and Irina present their latest findings at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) in Orlando, Florida. |
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JUNE 2016
Irina shares her findings on the "The power of food: nutritional programming of lifespan in Drosophila" in the 6th Annual MPI-CBG Postdoc Symposium organised in Harnack Haus, Berlin. |
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MAY 2016
Developmental metabolism met cancer metabolism at an exciting workshop "Metabolism in Development and Disease” organised by the Company of Biologists. Meeting review published in Development |
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OCTOBER 2015
Andrew's paper, Antioxidant role for lipid droplets in a stem cell niche of Drosophila, is published in Cell. The research reveals that lipid droplets, crucial organelles for energy storage, can also protect against oxidative stress. More details on The Crick website How Brain Fat Conquers Stress Andrew's paper has a Preview by Michael Welte in the same issue of Cell. |
Distribution of ROS in the CNS during normal development
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OCTOBER 2015
Congratulations to Andrew for coordinating with Eva, in the same week, the birth of their first son Lucas and the publication of his lipid droplet paper in Cell. |
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SEPTEMBER 2015
Well done Heidelberg for organizing a great European Drosophila Research Conference. Andrew, Clara, Fumiaki and Irina gave talks and Alex chaired a session. We are helping to organize the next EDRC in London in 2017! |
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JUNE 2015
The 10th Crick Symposium on "Nutrition and the Developmental Origins of Disease” took place at the Wellcome collection in London on June 25th. The scientific organisers were Sue Ozanne and Alex Gould. More details |
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APRIL 2015
On 1 April 2015, the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) became part of the new Francis Crick Institute. Information about The 101 year history of the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) is now available online. Click here A book chronicling the History of NIMR “A century of Science for Health” is available to download. Click here This includes a chapter on metabolic research at NIMR, from Henry Dale’s Division of Biochemistry and Pharmacology in the 1920s through to our own Division of Physiology & Metabolism, which lasted from 2012 to the end of NIMR in 2015. Available here |
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Also available:
- A film about the history of NIMR at Hampstead and at Mill Hill by Taslima Khan: "MRC National Institute for Medical Research: The Place, The People, The Science”. Click here to access the video
- A collection of Mill Hill Essays can also be accessed here, including one from 2009 about stem cell therapy, written by Alex Gould and François Guillemot
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APRIL 2015
Congratulations to Andrew Bailey for winning a Postdoc poster prize at the 2015 BSDB/BSCB Spring meeting in Warwick. Irina also gave a talk and Alex chaired a session. |
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MARCH 2015
Funding to the lab from the Wellcome Trust has been finalized for a new six year programme of work, due to begin in the lab in 2016, on how nutrition during development has long-term effects upon adult metabolism and lifespan. |
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OCTOBER 2014
The Gould Lab joins their french fly colleagues at the 28th Annual French Drosophila Conference in Sète. Clara and Alex are giving a talk and Vanessa is presenting a poster. |
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APRIL 2014
A new science and technology platform for metabolomics has recently been established in the Division of Physiology & Metabolism at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research. This will transfer to the Francis Crick Institute in 2015. Dr James MacRae, Head of Metabolomics, oversees mass spectrometry metabolomics. Dr. Paul Driscoll oversees NMR metabolomics. |
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APRIL 2014
Fabrice Prin and Patricia Serpente in the lab have shown that many Hox proteins share the ability to keep similar neural cells in the hindbrain close to each other and also away from dissimilar neighbours. The work is published in Development |
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DECEMBER 2013
Expanding metabolism at The Crick The Division of Physiology & Metabolism at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research has now grown to four groups. All groups will transfer to the Francis Crick Institute when it opens in 2015. Research in the Division focuses on aspects of metabolism that are relevant to physiological health and diseases such as cancer. Dimitrios Anastasiou joined the Division in late 2012, Mariia Yuneva in early 2013, and Markus Ralser at the end of 2013. The Division of Physiology & Metabolism at NIMR was established in 2012, with Alex Gould as Head. |
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NOVEMBER 2013
Metabolomics goes miniature: metabolic profiling in small volumes Timothy Ragan and Andrew Bailey in the laboratories of Paul Driscoll and Alex Gould collaborated to develop a new method for accurately measuring the concentrations of metabolites in tiny biological samples of indeterminate volume. The work is published in Analytical Chemistry |
Left: A Drosophila larva on a one penny coin. Right: illustration of the improved clustering of replicate datasets obtained for fed and nutrient-restricted larvae using VDTS.
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MAY 2013
Alex Gould is elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences. |
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JULY 2012
The first Francis Crick Institute symposium took place at the Wellcome Collection, London on 2nd July. The subject of this symposium was Metabolism in Health and Disease. The scientific organiser was Alex Gould. More details |
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SEPTEMBER 2012
Farewell to Rita. No need for tears as Rita is not moving too far. She starts her own lab at King’s College, London. |
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MARCH 2012
Farewell to Louise. We’ll miss you but huge congratulations on starting your own lab at the Peter Mac in Melbourne. |
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JANUARY 2012
Quantitative imaging of metabolism: seeing is believing Andrew Bailey in the lab collaborated with Claude Lechene at Harvard Medical School to develop imaging mass spectrometry methods for visualizing and quantitating lipid metabolism inside a single cell. They used Drosophila as a test case because it is emerging as a powerful model system for studying the genetics of lipid metabolism but, due to its small size, it can be difficult to purify sufficient amounts of any one cell type to do conventional mass spectrometry. The research is published in Nature |
Rapid turnover of carbon in the lipid droplets of Drosophila intestinal cells
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AUGUST 2011
Louise Cheng and Andrew Bailey in the lab collaborated with Timothy Ragan and Paul Driscoll, also at NIMR, to shed light on how the growth of the central nervous system (CNS) is protected over other organs during periods of starvation. The work has implications for understanding the growth of cancerous tumours. More details on The Crick website The work is published in Cell |
Central Nervous System stem cells can grow during nutrient restriction while many other tissues cannot
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APRIL 2011
Alex Gould is awarded the 2011 Hooke Medal by the British Society for Cell Biology |
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FEBRUARY 2011
Rita Sousa-Nunes in the lab used an integrative physiology approach in fruit flies to identify a tissue-to-tissue relay mechanism controlling the growth and proliferation of neural progenitors. Amino acid sensing by adipose tissue is relayed to glial cells, which secrete Insulin-like peptides (Ilps) to stimulate quiescent neuroblasts to re-enter the cell cycle. The work is published in Nature |
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