Dr Derek Stemple

Derek is Head of Mouse and Zebrafish Genetics. Derek's team works on a range of projects related to growth and development and human disease, using the model organisms Xenopus tropicalis and the zebrafish.

Derek obtained his first degrees from the University of Colorado, Boulder in Applied Mathematics (BS) and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (BA).

As a postgraduate Derek worked for several years studying microtubule dynamics and mitosis with Professor J Richard McIntosh (Saxton et al., 1984; Stemple et al., 1988). He began his PhD studies in Neurobiology at the California Institute of Technology under the supervision of Professor David Anderson, which concluded with his discovery of the mammalian neural crest stem cell (Stemple and Anderson, 1992). As a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow working with Professor Wolfgang Driever at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Derek participated in a large-scale systematic screen for mutations affecting embryogenesis in Zebrafish (Driever et al., 1996; Stemple et al., 1996). As an independent investigator at the National Institute for Medical Research, London Derek's group identified several genes important for development of the notochord (Coutinho et al., 2004; Heisenberg et al., 2000; Parsons et al., 2002a; Parsons et al., 2002b; Pei et al., 2007; Pollard et al., 2006; Saude et al., 2000; Stemple, 2005). Currently Derek is a Senior Investigator at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, where his group studies the genetics of vertebrate early development, skeletal sarcomere formation and muscle integrity as well as zebrafish genomics (Carruthers and Stemple, 2006; Goda et al., 2006; Noel et al., 2008; Pei et al., 2007). Derek's group is also involved with two major Sanger Institute projects, the Zebrafish Mutation Resource and the Zebrafish Genome Sequencing Project.

Selected Publications

• Organ-specific requirements for Hdac1 in liver and pancreas formation.

  Noël ES, Casal-Sueiro A, Busch-Nentwich E, Verkade H, Dong PD, Stemple DL and Ober EA

  Developmental biology 2008;322;2;237-50

  PUBMED: 18687323; DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2008.06.040

• Environmental and genetic modifiers of squint penetrance during zebrafish embryogenesis.

  Pei W, Williams PH, Clark MD, Stemple DL and Feldman B

  Developmental biology 2007;308;2;368-78

  PUBMED: 17583692; PMC: 1994576; DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2007.05.026

• Genetic screens for mutations affecting development of Xenopus tropicalis.

  Goda T, Abu-Daya A, Carruthers S, Clark MD, Stemple DL and Zimmerman LB

  PLoS genetics 2006;2;6;e91

  PUBMED: 16789825; PMC: 1475704; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.0020091

• Genetic and genomic prospects for Xenopus tropicalis research.

  Carruthers S and Stemple DL

  Seminars in cell & developmental biology 2006;17;1;146-53

  PUBMED: 16427790; DOI: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2005.11.009

• Essential and overlapping roles for laminin alpha chains in notochord and blood vessel formation.

  Pollard SM, Parsons MJ, Kamei M, Kettleborough RN, Thomas KA, Pham VN, Bae MK, Scott A, Weinstein BM and Stemple DL

  Developmental biology 2006;289;1;64-76

  PUBMED: 16321372; DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2005.10.006

• Structure and function of the notochord: an essential organ for chordate development.

  Stemple DL

  Development (Cambridge, England) 2005;132;11;2503-12

  PUBMED: 15890825; DOI: 10.1242/dev.01812

• Differential requirements for COPI transport during vertebrate early development.

  Coutinho P, Parsons MJ, Thomas KA, Hirst EM, Saúde L, Campos I, Williams PH and Stemple DL

  Developmental cell 2004;7;4;547-58

  PUBMED: 15469843; DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2004.07.020

• Removal of dystroglycan causes severe muscular dystrophy in zebrafish embryos.

  Parsons MJ, Campos I, Hirst EM and Stemple DL

  Development (Cambridge, England) 2002;129;14;3505-12

  PUBMED: 12091319

• Zebrafish mutants identify an essential role for laminins in notochord formation.

  Parsons MJ, Pollard SM, Saúde L, Feldman B, Coutinho P, Hirst EM and Stemple DL

  Development (Cambridge, England) 2002;129;13;3137-46

  PUBMED: 12070089

• Axis-inducing activities and cell fates of the zebrafish organizer.

  Saúde L, Woolley K, Martin P, Driever W and Stemple DL

  Development (Cambridge, England) 2000;127;16;3407-17

  PUBMED: 10903167

• Silberblick/Wnt11 mediates convergent extension movements during zebrafish gastrulation.

  Heisenberg CP, Tada M, Rauch GJ, Saúde L, Concha ML, Geisler R, Stemple DL, Smith JC and Wilson SW

  Nature 2000;405;6782;76-81

  PUBMED: 10811221; DOI: 10.1038/35011068

• A genetic screen for mutations affecting embryogenesis in zebrafish.

  Driever W, Solnica-Krezel L, Schier AF, Neuhauss SC, Malicki J, Stemple DL, Stainier DY, Zwartkruis F, Abdelilah S, Rangini Z, Belak J and Boggs C

  Development (Cambridge, England) 1996;123;37-46

  PUBMED: 9007227

• Mutations affecting development of the notochord in zebrafish.

  Stemple DL, Solnica-Krezel L, Zwartkruis F, Neuhauss SC, Schier AF, Malicki J, Stainier DY, Abdelilah S, Rangini Z, Mountcastle-Shah E and Driever W

  Development (Cambridge, England) 1996;123;117-28

  PUBMED: 9007234

• Isolation of a stem cell for neurons and glia from the mammalian neural crest.

  Stemple DL and Anderson DJ

  Cell 1992;71;6;973-85

  PUBMED: 1458542

• Dynamics of a fluorescent calmodulin analog in the mammalian mitotic spindle at metaphase.

  Stemple DL, Sweet SC, Welsh MJ and McIntosh JR

  Cell motility and the cytoskeleton 1988;9;3;231-42

  PUBMED: 2896549; DOI: 10.1002/cm.970090305

• Tubulin dynamics in cultured mammalian cells.

  Saxton WM, Stemple DL, Leslie RJ, Salmon ED, Zavortink M and McIntosh JR

  The Journal of cell biology 1984;99;6;2175-86

  PUBMED: 6501419; PMC: 2113582