Dr. David Jeffrey Anderson is a preeminent neuroscientist whose pioneering work has fundamentally transformed our understanding of neural development and emotional circuitry. He currently serves as the Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology where he also holds the TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Leadership Chair and serves as Director of the TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience. A Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 1989, Anderson received his PhD in cell biology from Rockefeller University under Nobel Laureate Günter Blobel and completed postdoctoral training at Columbia University with Nobel Laureate Richard Axel. His distinguished career has been marked by strategic intellectual shifts that have consistently positioned him at the forefront of neuroscience innovation while maintaining rigorous scientific standards.
Anderson's groundbreaking research initially focused on the biology of neural crest stem cells during which he made the seminal discovery of being the first to isolate a multipotent self-renewing stem cell for neurons and glia. His laboratory identified key growth factors and master transcriptional regulators that control differentiation into neurons versus glia fundamentally advancing our understanding of neural development. Later he discovered that arteries and veins are genetically distinct even before the onset of heartbeat a finding that revolutionized vascular biology and earned significant recognition from experts including Judah Folkman. In the early 2000s Anderson pioneered a strategic shift to investigate neural circuits underlying innate emotional behaviors employing innovative techniques including optogenetics pharmacogenetics electrophysiology and machine vision-based behavior analysis in both mice and Drosophila models.
Beyond his direct research contributions Anderson has profoundly shaped the neuroscience landscape through leadership roles including serving as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Allen Institute for Brain Science where he spearheaded early efforts to map gene expression in the mouse brain. He has trained nearly forty postdoctoral fellows and PhD students throughout his distinguished career at Caltech fostering the next generation of neuroscientists who now lead laboratories worldwide. As a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Anderson continues to push the frontiers of neuroscience with his current work focused on elucidating how features of internal emotion states such as persistence scalability and valence are encoded in the brain's circuitry. His ongoing research investigating the neural basis of fear aggression and other emotional behaviors promises to transform our understanding of emotional disorders and could lead to novel therapeutic approaches for conditions involving dysregulated emotional responses.
