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Dr Jake Cornwall-Scoones

Dr Jake Cornwall-Scoones

BA PHD

  • Position Governing Body Fellow Junior Research Fellow
  • School Wellcome CRUK Gurdon Institute
  • Email jsc84@cam.ac.uk

Dr. Jake Cornwall-Scoones is a researcher at the interface between developmental, systems and physical biology. His work combines theory, synthetic biology and embryology to study the mechanisms by which cells individually and collectively process information.

Dr Jake Cornwall-Scoones

Jake obtained his BA at the University of Cambridge, where he specialised in developmental biology, working on mechanisms of joint patterning in the digits of tetrapods. After graduating, he worked on theoretical models of C. elegans cell polarity at UCL, on using force-inference strategies applied to study Drosophila morphogenesis in PDN Cambridge, and on mammalian cell polarity and self-organisation in ‘stembryo’ models at the California Institute of Technology. For his PhD at the Francis Crick Institute, supported by Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, Jake has established methods to generate synthetic morphogen-responsive cis-regulatory elements at scale, revealing modular design rules that enable predictable engineering of neural patterning. In addition, through a series of theory-experiment collaborations, he has established agent-based theoretical frameworks of morphogenesis and cellular differentiation.

Supported by the Schmidt Science Fellowship, ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½ Junior Research Fellowship and Isaac Newton Trust, Jake’s postdoctoral research will use zebrafish developmental genetics and theoretical approaches to investigate the mechanisms by which organs measure and regulate their sizes. 

Dr Cornwall-Scoones’ current research investigates how organs grow to the right size during development. His work combines experimental embryology with quantitative modelling to understand how cellular interactions give rise to reliable organ-scale outcomes.

Using zebrafish eye development as a model system, the research aims to identify how tissues detect size perturbations and coordinate changes in cell division, differentiation, and cell death to restore correct dimensions. In particular, the research will investigate whether there exist molecular “yardsticks� that may act as size-dependent regulators of growth. This work is supported by a collaboration between the Gurdon Institute, Cambridge, and University College London, bringing together expertise in zebrafish genetics, stem cell dynamics, quantitative modelling, and advanced microscopy.

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