About me

Experience:

2022 -

Present

Programme Leader (MRC LMS)

2021 -

Present

Reader in Behavioural Phenomics (Imperial College London)

2017 -

2021

Senior Lecturer (Imperial College London)

2017 -

2022

Programme Leader Track (MRC LMS)

2013 -

2017

Career Development Award (MRC LMS)

2010 -

2013

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (MRC LMB)

2009 -

 

PhD Physics (University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA)

2003 -

 

BSc Physics (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada)

About me:

My background is in physics but I've always loved working on biological problems. We do both computation and experimental work in my lab. The LMS really embraces researchers from different disciplines and is the perfect place to combine approaches and find great collaborators.

Impact of my work:

We have developed technology that makes it possible to do 10k behaviour experiments in a day. This new capability makes new kinds of experiments possible: rapid disease modelling and whole-animal drug screening, systematic searches for behaviour-modifying bacteria in diverse collections (wild strains, mutants, and bacteria engineered to produce a range of molecules).

My Research

Behavioural phenomics

We use imaging, machine learning, and molecular-level perturbations to understand physiology and ultimately treat disease. Our research focuses on using nematodes to model rare diseases and discover neuroactive molecules.

VIEW MY RESEARCH GROUP

Selected publications

Rosenhahn* E, O’Brien* TJ, Zaki MS, Sorge I, Wieczorek D, Rostasy K, Vitobello A, Nambot S, Alkuraya FS, Hashem MO, Alhashem A, Tabarki B, Alamri AS, Al Safar AH, Bubshait DK, Alahmady NF, Gleeson JG, Abdel-Hamid MS, Lesko N, Ygberg S, Correia SP, Wredenberg A, Alavi S, Seyedhassani SM, Nasab ME, Hussien H, Omar TEI, Harzallah I, Touraine R, Tajsharghi H, Morsy H, Houlden H, Shahrooei M, Ghavideldarestani M, Abdel-Salam GMH, Torella A, Zanobio M, Terrone G, Brunetti-Pierri N, Omrani A, Hentschel J, Lemke JR, Sticht H, Jamra RA, Brown# AEX, Maroofian# R, Platzer# K. (2022). Bi-allelic loss-of-function variants in PPFIBP1 cause a neurodevelopmental disorder with microcephaly, epilepsy, and periventricular calcifications. American Journal of Human Genetics 109:1421

*contributed equally; #co-corresponding

Barlow I, Feriani L, Minga E, McDermott-Rouse A, O’Brien T, Liu Z, Hofbauer M, Stowers JR, Andersen EC, Ding SS, Brown AEX. (2022). Megapixel camera arrays for high-resolution animal tracking in multiwell plates. Communications Biology 5:253

McDermott-Rouse A, Minga E, Barlow I, Feriani L, Harlow P, Flemming A, Brown AEX. (2021). Behavioral fingerprints predict insecticide and anthelmintic mode of action. Molecular Systems Biology ISSN: 1744-4292 (accepted)

Hadjieconomou D, King G, Gaspar P, Mineo A, Blackie L, Ameku T, Studd C, de Mendoza A, Diao F, White BH, Brown AEX, Plaçais P, Preat T, Miguel-Aliaga I. (2020). Enteric neurons increase maternal food intake during reproductionNature 587, 455–459.

Ding SS, Romenskyy M, Sarkisyan KS, Brown AEX. (2020). Measuring Caenorhabditis elegans Spatial Foraging and Food Intake Using Bioluminescent BacteriaGenetics, 214 (3), 577-587.

Essmann CL, Martinez-Martinez D, Pryor R, Leung K-Y, Krishnan KB, Lui PP, Greene NDE, Brown AEX, Pawar VM, Srinivasan MA, Cabreiro F. (2020). Mechanical properties measured by Atomic Force Microscopy define new health biomarkers in ageing C. elegans. Nature Communications 11 (1), 1-16.

Feng W, Li Y, Dao P, Aburas J, Islam P, Elbaz B, Kolarzyk A, Brown AEX, Kratsios P. (2020). A terminal selector prevents a Hox transcriptional switch to safeguard motor neuron identity throughout lifeeLife 9, e50065

Ding SS, Schumacher LJ, Javer AE, Endres RG, Brown AEX. (2019). Shared behavioral mechanisms underlie C. elegans aggregation and swarmingeLife 8, e43318

Javer A, Currie M, Lee C, Hokanson J, Li K, Martineau CN, Yemini E, Grundy LJ, Li C, Ch’ng Q, Schafer WR, Nollen EAA, Kerr R, Brown AEX. (2018). An open-source platform for analyzing and sharing worm-behavior data. Nature Methods 15:645, doi: 10.1038/s41592-018-0112-1.

Javer A, Ripoll-Sanchez L, Brown AEX. (2018). Powerful and interpretable behavioural features for quantitative phenotyping of C. elegans. Phil Trans R Soc B 373:20170375, doi: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0375.

Chew YL, Grundy LJ, Brown AEX, Beets I, Schafer WR. (2018). Neuropeptides encoded by nlp-49 modulate locomotion, arousal and egg-laying behaviours in C. elegans via the receptor SEB-3. Phil Trans R Soc B 373:20170375, doi: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0368.

Brown AEX, de Bivort BL. (2018). Ethology as a physical science. Nature Physics 14; 653–657, doi: 10.1038/s41567-018-0093-0.

Li K, Javer A, Keaveny EE, Brown AEX. (2017). Recurrent Neural Networks with Interpretable Cells Predict and Classify Worm BehaviourBioRxiv 222208.

Gomez-Marin A, Stephens GJ, Brown AEX. (2016). Hierarchical compression of C. elegans locomotion reveals phenotypic differences in the organisation of behaviourJournal of the Royal Society Interface  , doi: 10.1098/rsif.2016.0466.

Schwarz RF, Branicky R, Grundy LJ, Schafer WR, Brown AEX. (2015). Changes in Postural Syntax Characterize Sensory Modulation and Natural Variation of C. elegans LocomotionPLOS Computational Biology doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004322.

Brown AE, Yemini EI, Grundy LJ, Jucikas T, Schafer WR. (2013). A dictionary of behavioral motifs reveals clusters of genes affecting caenorhabditis elegans locomotionPNAS 110(2), 791–796.

Yemini E, Jucikas T, Grundy LJ, Brown AE, Schafer WR. (2013). A database of caenorhabditis elegans behavioral phenotypesNature Methods 10(9), 877–879.

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