Dr Gregory Jefferis FRS

Gregory Jefferis is group leader of the Drosophila Connectomics Group

He obtained his Neurosciences Ph.D. in 2004 for studies on wiring specificity in the Drosophila olfactory system with Liqun Luo at Stanford University. He then joined the Zoology department in Cambridge as a Wellcome Advanced Training Fellow. During this time he developed approaches for brain mapping at the level of single neurons, as well as learning the new Drosophila in vivo whole cell patch clamp preparation.

In 2008, he opened his group in the Neurobiology Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. They combine molecular biology, genetics, neuroanatomy, electro/optophysiology and behavioural analysis to understand the circuit basis of innate olfactory behaviour, with a special emphasis on sexually dimorphic circuits. He received an ERC Starting Grant in 2008, was appointed to the EMBO Young Investigator Programme in 2012, was promoted to tenured MRC Programme Leader in 2014 and was elected a FENS/Kavli scholar in 2016.

In 2015 he received an ERC Consolidator Grant and, in conjunction with this, was delighted to renew his links with the Zoology department through a joint appointment as Principal Research Associate. His work in Zoology is centred on the use of electron microscopy approaches to the study the organisation of the adult and larval fly brain as well as developmental studies. He was the principal applicant for a Wellcome Collaborative Award involving groups in Cambridge, HHMI Janelia (USA) and Oxford, which now funds the https://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/research/groups/connectomics group based in Zoology.

Key publications:

Stürner T, Brooks P, Serratosa Capdevila L, Morris BJ, Javier A, Fang S, Gkantia M, Cachero S, Beckett IR, Marin EC, Schlegel P, Champion AS, Moitra I, Richards A, Klemm F, Kugel L, Namiki S, Cheong HSJ, Kovalyak J, Tenshaw E, Parekh R, Phelps JS, Mark B, Dorkenwald S, Bates AS, Matsliah A, Yu SC, McKellar CE, Sterling A, Seung HS, Murthy M, Tuthill JC, Lee WA, Card GM, Costa M, Jefferis GSXE, Eichler K. Comparative connectomics of Drosophila descending and ascending neurons. Nature. 2025 Apr 30. doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-08925-z. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40307549. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08925-z 

Schlegel, P., Yin, Y., Bates, A.S., Dorkenwald, S., Eichler, K., Brooks, P., Han, D.S., Gkantia, M., Santos, M.D., Munnelly, E.J., Badalamente, G., Capdevila, L.S., Sane, V.A., Fragniere, A.M.C., Kiassat, L., Pleijzier, M.W., Stürner, T., Tamimi, I.F.M., Dunne, C.R., Salgarella, I., Javier, A., Fang, S., Perlman, E., Kazimiers, T., Jagannathan, S.R., Matsliah, A., Sterling, A.R., Yu, S., Costa, C.E.M.C., Seung, H.S., Murthy, M., Hartenstein, V., Bock, D.D., Jefferis, G.S.X.E. (2024) Whole-brain annotation and multi-connectome cell typing of Drosophila Nature 634(8032): 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07686-5 

Eckstein, N., Bates, A.S., Champion, A., Du, M., Yin, Y., Schlegel, P., Lu, A.K., Rymer, T., Finley-May, S., Paterson, T., Parekh, R., Dorkenwald, S., Matsliah, A., Yu, S., McKellar, C., Sterling, A., Eichler, K., Costa, M., Seung, S., Murthy, M., Hartenstein, V., Jefferis, G.S.X.E., Funke, J. (2024) Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster Cell 187(10): 2574-2594. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.03.016 

Taisz, I., Donà, E., Münch, D., Bailey, S.N., Morris, B.J., Meechan, K.I., Stevens, K.M., Varela-Martínez, I., Gkantia, M., Schlegel, P., Ribeiro, C., Jefferis, G.S.X.E., Galili, D.S. (2023) Generating parallel representations of position and identity in the olfactory system Cell 186(12): 2556-2573 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.03.016 

Bates, A.S., Manton, J.D., Jagannathan, S.R., Costa, M., Schlegel, P., Rohlfing, T., Jefferis, G.S. (2020)The natverse, a versatile toolbox for combining and analysing neuroanatomical data Elife 9: e53350. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.53350 

Dolan, M., Belliart-Guérin, G., Bates, A.S., Frechter, S., Lampin-Saint-Amaux, A., Aso, Y., Roberts, R.J.V., Schlegel, P., Wong, A., Hammad, A., Bock, D., Rubin, G.M., Preat, T., Plaçais, P., Jefferis, G.S.X.E. (2018) Communication from Learned to Innate Olfactory Processing Centers Is Required for Memory Retrieval in Drosophila Neuron 100(3): 651-668.

Kohl, J., Ng, J., Cachero, S., Ciabatti, E., Dolan, M.-J., Sutcliffe, B., Tozer, A., Ruehle, S., Krueger, D., Frechter, S., Branco, T., Tripodi, M., and Jefferis, G.S.X.E. (2014). Ultrafast tissue staining with chemical tags. PNAS 111, E3805–14. 

Kohl J., Ostrovsky A.D., Frechter S., and Jefferis G.S.X.E. (2013). A bidirectional circuit switch reroutes pheromone signals in male and female brains. Cell 155:1610–23.

Grosjean Y., Rytz R., Farine J.-P., Abuin L., Cortot J., Jefferis G.S.X.E., Benton R. (2011). An olfactory receptor for food-derived odours promotes male courtship in Drosophila. Nature 478:236-40.  

Cachero, S., Ostrovsky, A., Yu, J., Dickson, B., Jefferis, G.S.X.E. (2010). Sexual dimorphism in the fly brain. Current Biology 18:1589-1601. 

Jefferis, G.S.X.E., Potter, C.J., Chan, A.M., Marin, E.C., Rohlfing, T., Maurer Jr., C.R. & Luo, L. (2007). Comprehensive maps of Drosophila higher olfactory centres—spatial segregation of fruit and pheromone representation. Cell 128:1187–1203. 

Komiyama, T., Johnson, W.A., Luo, L., Jefferis, G.S.X.E. (2003). From lineage to wiring specificity—POU domain transcription factors control precise connections of Drosophila olfactory projection neurons. Cell 112:157–167.

Jefferis, G.S.X.E., Marin, E.C., Stocker, R.F., Luo, L (2001). Target neuron prespecification in the olfactory map of Drosophila. Nature 414:204–208. 

Full list of publications.