Greg Jefferis

Research group

Developmental Biology

Research interests

Our broad goal is to understand how smell turns into behaviour in the fruit fly brain. We use a combination of genetic labelling and manipulation, targeted in vivo whole cell patch clamp recording and high resolution neuroanatomy to study olfactory circuits. Key interests include understanding how third order olfactory neurons of the lateral horn integrate information from specific olfactory channels. This process of selective integration is the fundamental unit of perception and is likely to underlie innate behavioural responses to general odours and sex pheromones. Please get in touch if you would like to find out more about the group.

Selected publications

Jefferis GSXE, Potter CJ, Chan AM, Marin EC, Rohlfing T, Maurer Jr CR, Luo L (2007), “Comprehensive Maps of Drosophila Higher Olfactory Centres—Spatial Segregation of Fruit and Pheromone Representation”, Cell 128 (6):1187–1203

Jefferis, GSXE, Vyas, RM, Berdnik, D, Ramaekers, A, Stocker, RF, Tanaka, NK, Ito, K, and Luo, L (2004) Developmental origin of wiring specificity in the olfactory system of Drosophila. Development 131, 117–130

Komiyama T, Johnson WA, Luo L, Jefferis GSXE (2003), “From lineage to wiring specificity—POU domain transcription factors control precise connections of Drosophila olfactory projection neurons”, Cell 112 (2):157–67

Marin, EC, Jefferis, GSXE, Komiyama, T, Zhu, H, and Luo, L (2002) Representation of the glomerular olfactory map in the Drosophila brain. Cell 109, 243–255

Jefferis GSXE, Marin EC, Stocker RF, Luo L (2001), “Target neuron prespecification in the olfactory map of Drosophila”, Nature 414(6860):204–8