Scientific CV in PDF format - IMP

Barry J. Dickson
Date of Birth: 14. August, 1962
Place of Birth: Melbourne, Australia
Nationality:
Australian
Address:
Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP)
Dr. Bohr-Gasse 7
A-1030 Vienna
Austria
Telephone:
+43 1 797 30 3000 (office)
Fax: +43 1 798 93 90
Email:
dickson@imp.ac.at
Education:
B.Sc. 1984 University of Melbourne, Australia
B.Sc.(Hons.) 1987 University of Melbourne, Australia
Supervisor: Dr. Chris Cobbett
Thesis: Interactions between multiple operator sites controlling
transcription of the aroFtyrA operon of Escherichia coli K-12.
Ph.D. 1992 University of Zürich, Switzerland
Supervisor: Prof. Ernst Hafen
Thesis: Specificity and Competence in Cell-Cell Interactions:
Induction of the R7 Cell Fate in the Developing Eye of Drosophila
melanogaster.
Predoctoral Research Experience:
1984-1986 Research Assistant
Epidemiology Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Melbourne,
and Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin, Australia.
1987-1989 Research Assistant
Laboratory of Dr. Jochem Spiess
Salk Institute, San Diego, California.
Postdoctoral Training:
1993-1994 Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Ernst Hafen, Zoologisches Institut
der Universität Zürich, Switzerland.
1994-1995 Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Corey Goodman, Department of
Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley.

Academic Positions:
1996-1998 Junior Group Leader (Oberassistent)
Zoologisches Institut der Universität Zürich, Switzerland
1998-2002 Group Leader
Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, Austria
2003-2005 Senior Scientist
Institute of Molecular Biotechnology
Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), Vienna, Austria
from 2006 Director
Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna, Austria
Research Grants:
1992 EMBO Short Term Fellowship
1994-1995 Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship
1996-1998 Grant No. 31-45842.95 from the Swiss National Science
Foundation. (CHF 366,700)
1996-1997 Grant from the Hoffman-La Roche Research Foundation
(CHF 58,000)
1998-2000 Grant No. 31-45842.95 extended by the Swiss National Science
Foundation. (CHF 366,700).
Discontinued 1999 due to relocation.
2001-2004 Human Frontiers of Science Program .
Coapplicants: Tadashi Uemura, Liqun Luo and Mu-Ming Poo.
(Total $US250,000)
2001-2004 European Union “FLYSNP” (coordinator).
Coapplicants: Ann-Christine Syvänen, Montserrat Aguade, Markus
Kostrzewa, Istvan Kiss, Daniel St. Johnston, David Ish-Horowicz.
(Total 2,212,099)
2001-2004 Grant No. P15004 from the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF)
(Euro 296,851)
2004-2007 Grant No. P16607 from the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF)
(Euro 431,424)
2005-2010 Grant No. Z98-B09 Wittgenstein Prize from the Austrian Science Foundation
(FWF); EUR 1.300.000
2006-2009 Grant No. LS05035 from Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF); EUR
326.746
2006-2009 Grant No. GZ200.147/1-VI/1a2006 GEN-AU 2 from bm:bwk; EUR 72.628
2007-2010 Human Frontiers of Science Program .
Coapplicants: Rachel Wilson, Gero Miesenböck, Daniel Robert.
(Total $US400,000)
2008-2010 Grant No. P20909-B09 from the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF)
2008-2010 European Union "Cancer Pathways" (coordinator M. Boutros).
2009-2014 European Research Council Advanced Grant "Neural basis of Drosophila mating
behaviours". EUR 2,492,164

Awards:
2000 EMBO Young Investigator Award
2003 EMBO Membership
2005 Wittgenstein Prize, Austrian Science Foundation
2006 Remedios Caro Almela Prize for Research in Developmental Neurobiology
2009 Elected AAAS Fellow
Editorial Boards:
2003- Trends in Neuroscience
2003-2006 PLoS Biology
2006- Current Opinion in Neurobiology
Scientific Advisory Boards and Committees
2005-2008 HFSP, long term fellowship committee
2007-2010 ERC Starting Grants, Neuroscience panel
2008- Scientific Committee, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon
2008-2011 SAB, European Neuroscience Institute, Göttingen
2008-2011 SAB, Max Planck Institute of Genetics and Cell Biology, Dresden
2009-2011 SAC, EMBL, Heidelberg
2010-2011 SAB, Developmental Biology Institute of Marseille-Luminy
2012- Review Committee, Institute of Neurosciences, Shanghai
PhD theses supervised:
2000 Timothy Newsome
2001 Valérie Vivancos
2002 Srikanth Rajagopalan
2003 Kirsten Senti
2003 Krystyna Keleman
2005 Jürg Berger
2005 Marko Brankatschk
2005 Georg Dietzl
2006 Africa Couto
2006 Giorgio Gilestro
2006 Duda Kvitsiani
2006 Ebru Demir
2007 Amina Kurtovic
2007 Shay Rotkopf
2008 Nilay Yapici
2009 Jai Yu
2009 Bettina Spitzweck
2010 Martin Häsemeyer
2010 Kai Feng
2011 Sabrina Joerchel
2012 Salil Bidaye

Publications:
Research Articles
1. Andrews, A.E., Dickson, B.J., Lawley, B., Cobbett, C. and Pritchard, A.J. (1991). Importance of
the position of TYR R boxes for repression and activation of the tyrP and aroF genes of
Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol. 173: 5079-85.
2. Dickson, B.J., Sprenger, F. and Hafen, E. (1992). Prepattern in the developing Drosophila eye
revealed by an activated torso-sevenless chimeric receptor. Genes Dev. 6: 2327-39.
3. Dickson, B.J., Sprenger, F., Morrison, D. and Hafen, E. (1992). Raf functions downstream of Ras1
in the sevenless signal transduction pathway. Nature 360: 600-3.
4. Olivier, J.P., Raabe, T., Henkemeyer, M., Dickson, B.J., Mbamalu, G., Margolis, B., Schlessinger,
J., Hafen, E. and Pawson, T. (1993). A Drosophila SH2-SH3 adaptor protein implicated in coupling
the sevenless receptor tyrosine kinase to an activator of Ras guanine nucleotide exchange, Sos. Cell
73: 179-91.
5. Biggs, W., Zavitz, K.H., Dickson, B.J., van der Straten, A., Brunner, D., Hafen, E. and Zipursky,
S.L. (1994). The Drosophila rolled locus encodes a MAP kinase required in the sevenless signal
transduction pathway. EMBO J 13: 1628-35.
6. Reichmann-Fried, M., Dickson, B.J., Hafen, E. and Shilo, B.-Z. (1994). Elucidation of the role of
breathless, a Drosophila FGF receptor homologue, in tracheal cell migration. Genes Dev. 8: 428-
39.
7. Dickson, B.J., Dominguez, M., van der Straten, A. and Hafen, E. (1995). Control of Drosophila
photoreceptor cell fates by Phyllopod, a novel nuclear protein acting downstream of the Raf kinase.
Cell 80: 453-62.
8. Raabe, T., Olivier, J.P., Dickson, B.J., Liu, X., Gish, G., Pawson, T. and Hafen, E. (1995).
Biochemical and genetic analysis of the Drk SH2/SH3 adaptor protein of Drosophila. EMBO J 14:
2509-18.
9. Dickson, B.J., van der Straten, A., Dominguez, M. and Hafen, E. (1996). Mutations modulating Raf
signalling in Drosophila eye development. Genetics 142: 163-171.
10. Mitchell, K.J., Doyle, J.L., Serafini, T., Kennedy, T.E., Tessier-Lavigne, M., Goodman, C.S., and
Dickson, B.J. (1996). Genetic analysis of Netrin genes in Drosophila: Netrins guide CNS
commissural axons and peripheral motor axons. Neuron 17: 203-215.
11. van der Straten, A., Rommel, C., Dickson, B.J., and Hafen, E. (1997). The heat shock protein 83
(Hsp83) is required for Raf-mediated signalling in Drosophila. EMBO J 16: 1961-1969.
12. Burke, R., Nellen, D., Bellotto, M., Hafen, E., Senti, K.-A., Dickson, B.J., and Basler, K. (1999).
Dispatched, a novel sterol-sensing domain protein dedicated to the release of cholesterol-modified
hedgehog from signaling cells. Cell 99: 803-815.
13. Newsome, T.P., Åsling, B., and Dickson, B. J. (2000). Analysis of Drosophila photoreceptor axon
guidance in eye-specific mosaics. Development 127: 851-860.
14. Newsome, T.P., Schmidt, S., Dietzl, G., Keleman, K., Åsling, B., Debant, A., and Dickson, B.J.
(2000). Trio combines with Dock to regulate Pak activity during photoreceptor axon pathfinding in
Drosophila. Cell 101: 283-294.
15. Senti, K.-A., Keleman, K., Eisenhaber, F., and Dickson, B.J. (2000). brakeless is required for
lamina targeting of R1-R6 axons in the Drosophila visual system. Development 127: 2291-2301.
16. Rajagopalan, S., Vivancos, V., Nicolas, E., and Dickson, B.J. (2000). Selecting a longitudinal
pathway: Robo receptors specify the lateral position of axons in the Drosophila CNS. Cell 103:
1033-1045
17. Rajagopalan, S., Nicolas, E., Vivancos, V., Berger, J., and Dickson, B.J. (2000). Crossing the
midline: Roles and regulation of Robo receptors. Neuron 28: 767-777.
18. Wittwer, F., van der Straten A., Keleman, K., Dickson, B.J. and Hafen, E. (2001). Lilliputian: an
AF4/FMR2-related protein that controls cell identity and cell growth. Development 128: 791-800.
19. Tapon, N., Ito, N., Dickson, B.J., Treisman, J.E., and Hariharan, I.K. (2001) The Drosophila
tuberous sclerosis complex gene homologs restrict cell growth and cell proliferation. Cell 105: 345-
355.
20. Maurel-Zaffran, C., Suzuki, T., Gahmon, G., Treisman, J.E. and Dickson, B.J. (2001). Cellautonomous
and -nonautonomous functions of LAR in R7 photoreceptor axon targeting. Neuron
32: 225-235.
21. Berger, J., Suzuki, T., Senti, K.-A., Stubbs, J., Schaffner, G., and Dickson, B.J. (2001). Genetic
mapping with SNP markers in Drosophila. Nature Genetics 29: 475-481.

22. Keleman, K. and Dickson, B.J. (2001). Short- and long-range repulsion by the Drosophila Unc5
netrin receptor. Neuron 32: 605-617.
23. Hakeda-Suzuki, S., Ng, J., Tzu, J., Dietzl, G., Sun, Y., Harms, M., Nardine, T., Luo, L., and
Dickson, B.J. (2002). Rac function and regulation during Drosophila development. Nature 416:
438-442.
24. Ng, J., Nardine, T., Harms, M., Tzu, J., Goldstein, A., Dietzl, G., Sun, Y., Dickson, B.J. and Luo,
L. (2002). Rac GTPases control axon growth, guidance and branching. Nature 416: 442-447.
25. Keleman, K., Rajagopalan, S., Cleppien, D., Teis, D., Paiha, K., Huber, L.A., Technau, G.M., and
Dickson, B.J. (2002). Comm sorts Robo to control axon guidance at the Drosophila midline. Cell
110: 415-427.
26. Senti, K.-A., Usui, T., Boucke, K., Greber, U., Uemura, T, and Dickson, B. J. (2003). Flamingo
regulates R8 axon-axon and axon-target interactionsin the Drosophila visual system. Curr. Biol.
13: 828-832.
27. Ryder, E., et al. (2004). The DrosDel collection: A set of P-element insertions for generating
custom chromosomal aberrations in Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 167: 797-813.
28. Lundstrom, A., Gallio, M., Englund, C., Stenberg, P., Hemphala, J., Aspenstrom, P., Keleman, K.,
Falileeva, L., Dickson, B.J., and Samakovlis, C. (2004). Vilse, a conserved Rac/Cdc42 GAP
mediating Robo repulsion in tracheal cells and axons. Genes & Development 18: 2161-2171.
29. Keleman, K., Ribeiro, C., and Dickson, B.J. (2005). Comm function in commissural axon
guidance: cell-autonomous sorting of Robo in vivo. Nature Neuroscience 8: 156-163.
30. Demir, E. and Dickson, B.J. (2005). fruitless splicing specifies male courtship behavior in
Drosophila. Cell 121: 785-794
31. Stockinger, P., Kvitsiani, D., Rotkopf, S., Tirian, L. and Dickson, B.J. (2005). Neural circuitry that
governs Drosophila male courtship behavior. Cell 121: 795-807
32. Couto, A., Alenius, M. and Dickson, B.J. (2005). Molecular, anatomical, and functional
organization of the Drosophila olfactory system. Curr. Biol. 15: 1535-1547.
33. Brankatschk, M. and Dickson, B.J. (2006) Netrins guide Drosophila commissural axons at short
range. Nature Neuroscience 9, 188-194.
34. Kvitsiani, D. and Dickson, B.J. (2006) Shared neural circuitry for female and male sexual
behaviours in Drosophila. Curr. Biol. 16: 355-356
35. Vrontou, E., Nilsen, S., Demir, E., Kravitz, E.A., and Dickson, B.J. (2006) fruitless regulates
aggression and dominance in Drosophila. Nature Neuroscience 12: 1469-1471.
36. Sweeney, L.B., Couto, A., Chou, Y.-H., Berdnik, D., Dickson, B.J., Luo, L., and Komiyama, T.
(2007). Temporal target restriction of olfactory receptor neurons by Semaphorin-1a/PlexinAmediated
axon-axon interactions. Neuron 53: 185-200.
37. Kurtovic, A., Widmer, A., and Dickson, B.J. (2007). A single class of olfactory neurons mediates
behavioural responses to a Drosophila sex pheromone. Nature,446: 542-546.
38. Schnorrer, F., Kalchhauser, I., and Dickson, B.J. (20007). The transmembrane protein Kon-tiki
couples to Dgrip to mediate myotube targeting in Drosophila. Developmental Cell 12: 751-766.
39. Dietzl, G., Chen, D., Schnorrer, F., Su, K.-C., Barinova, Y., Fellner, M., Gasser, B., Kinsey, K.,
Oppel, S., Scheiblauer, S., Couto, A., Marra, V., Keleman, K., and Dickson, B.J. (2007). A
genome-wide transgenic RNAi library for conditional gene inactivation in Drosophila. Nature
448: 151-156.
40. Hattori, D., Demir, E., Kim, H.W., Viragh, E., Zipursky, S.L., and Dickson, B.J. (2007). Dscam
diversity is essential for neuronal wiring and self-recognition. Nature 449: 223-227.
41. Keleman, K., Krüttner, S., Alenius, M., and Dickson, B.J. (2007). Function of the Drosophila
CPEB protein Orb2 in long-term courtship memory. Nature Neuroscience 10: 1587-1593..
42. Yapici, N., Kim, Y.-J., Ribeiro, C., and Dickson, B.J. (2008). A receptor that mediates the postmating
switch in Drosophila reproductive behaviour. Nature 451: 33-37.
43. Pauli, A., Althoff, F., Oliveira. R.A., Heidmann, S., Schuldiner, O., Lehner, C.F., Dickson, B.J.,
Nasmyth, K. (2008). Cell-type-specific TEV protease cleavage reveals cohesin functions in
Drosophila neurons. Developmental Cell. 14: 239-251.
44. Datta, S.R., Vasconcelos, M.L., Ruta, V., Luo, S., Wong, A., Demir, E., Flores, J., Balonze, K.,
Dickson, B.J., Axel, R. (2008). The Drosophila pheromone cVA activates a sexually dimorphic
neural circuit. Nature. 452: 473-477.
45. Chen, D., Ahlford, A., Schnorrer, F., Kalchhauser, I., Fellner, M., Viràgh, E., Kiss, I., Syvänen,
A.C., Dickson, B.J. (2008). High-resolution, high-throughput SNP mapping in Drosophila
melanogaster. Nature Methods. 5: 323-329.
46. Berger, J., Senti, K.-A., Senti, G., Newsome, T.P., Åsling, B., Dickson, B.J., and Suzuki, T. (2008).
Systematic identification of genes that regulate neuronal wiring in the Drosophila visual system.
PLoS Genetics 4: e1000085.

47. Barkus, R.V., Klyachko, O., Horiuchi, D., Dickson, B.J., and Saxton, W.M. (2008). Identification
of an axonal kinesin-3 motor for fast anterograde vesicle transport that facilitates retrograde
transport of neuropeptides. Mol Biol Cell. 19: 274-283.
48. Bruckner, S., Soltészová, V., Gröller, M.E., Hladůvka, J., Bühler, K., Yu, J.Y., and Dickson, B.J.
(2009). BrainGazer--visual queries for neurobiology research. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph.
15: 1497-1504.
49. Häsemeyer, M., Yapici, N., Heberlein, U., and Dickson, B.J. (2009). Sensory neurons in the
Drosophila genital tract regulate female reproductive behavior. Neuron 61: 511-518
50. Mummery-Widmer, J.L., Yamazaki, M., Stoeger, T., Novatchkova, M., Bhalerao, S., Chen, D.,
Dietzl, G., Dickson, B.J., and Knoblich, J.A. (2009). Genome-wide analysis of Notch signalling in
Drosophila by transgenic RNAi. Nature 458: 987-992
51. Spitzweck, B., Brankatschk, M., Dickson, B.J. (2010). Distinct protein domains and expression
patterns confer divergent axon guidance functions for Drosophila Robo receptors. Cell 140: 409-
420.
52. Schnorrer, F., Schönbauer, C., Langer, C.C., Dietzl, G., Novatchkova, M., Schernhuber, K., Fellner,
M., Azaryan, A., Radolf, M., Stark, A., Keleman, K., and Dickson, B.J. (2010). Systematic genetic
analysis of muscle morphogenesis and function in Drosophila. Nature 464: 287-291
53. Kim, Y.J., Bartalska, K., Audsley, N., Yamanaka, N., Yapici, N., Lee, Y.J., Kim, Y.C., Markovic,
M., Isaac, E., Tanaka, Y., and Dickson, B.J. (2010). MIPs are ancestral ligands for the sex peptide
receptor. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107: 6520-6525.
54. Ribeiro, C and Dickson, B.J. (2010). Sex peptide receptor and neuronal TOR/S6K signaling
modulate nutrient balancing in Drosophila. Curr. Biol. 20: 1000-1005
55. Yu, Y.J., Kanai, M.I., Demir, E., Jefferis, G.S.X.E., and Dickson, B.J. (2010). Cellular organization
of the neural circuit that drives Drosophila courtship behavior. Curr Biol. 20: 1602-1614.
56. Cachero, S., Ostrovsky, A.D., Yu, J.Y., Dickson, B.J. and Jefferis, G.S.X.E. (2010). Sexual
dimorphism in the fly brain. Curr. Biol. 20: 1589-1601.
57. Hadjieconomou D., Rotkopf, S., Alexandre, C., Bell, D.M., Dickson, B.J. and Salecker, I. (2011).
Flybow: genetic multicolor cell labelling for neural circuit analysis in Drosophila melanogaster.
Nature Methods 8: 260-266.
58. von Philipsborn, A.C., Liu, T., Yu, J.Y., Masser, C., Bidaye, S.S. and Dickson, B.J. (2011).
Neuronal control of Drosophila courtship song. Neuron 69: 509-522.
59. Pappu, K.S., Morey, M., Nern, A., Spitzweck, B., Dickson, B.J. and Zipursky, S.L. (2011). Robo3-
mediated repulsive interactions guide R8 axons during Drosophila visual system development.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A 108: 7571-7576.
60. Lai, J.S.-Y., Lo, S.-J., Dickson, B.J. and Chiang, A.-S. (2012). Auditory circuit in the Drosophila
brain. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A 109: 2607-2612.
61. Kvon, E., Stampfel, G., Yañez-Cuna, J.O., Dickson, B.J. and Stark, A. (2012) HOT regions
function as patterned developmental enhancers and have a distinct cis-regulatory signature. Genes
Dev. 26: 908-913.
62. Toda, H., Zhao, X. and Dickson, B.J. (2012). The Drosophila female aphrodisiac pheromone
activates ppk23 + sensory neurons to elicit male courtship behavior. Cell Reports 1: 599-607.
63. Keleman, K., Vrontou, E., Krüttner, S., Yu., J.Y., Kurtovic, A., and Dickson, B.J. (2012).
Dopamine neurons modulate pheromone responses in Drosophila courtship learning. Nature in
press.
Reviews and Commentaries
1. Dickson, B. and Hafen, E. (1993). Genetic dissection of eye development in Drosophila. In: Bate,
M. and Martinez-Arias, A (eds). The Development of Drosophila melanogaster. Cold Spring
Harbor Laboratory Press. pp 1327-62.
2. Dickson, B. and Hafen, E. (1994). Genetics of signal transduction in invertebrates. Curr. Opin.
Genet. Dev. 4: 64-70.
3. Dickson, B.J. (1995). Nuclear factors in sevenless signalling. Trends Genet. 11: 106-111.
4. Dickson, B.J. (1998). Photoreceptor development: Breaking down the barriers. Curr. Biol. 8: R90-
R92.
5. Dickson, B.J. (1998). A roundabout way of avoiding the midline (News and Views). Nature 391:
4412-4413.
6. Dickson, B.J. (2000). Reverse gear for Drosophila. (News and Views). Nature 405: 896-897.
7. Dickson, B.J. (2001). Rho GTPases in growth cone guidance. Curr. Op. Neurobiol. 11: 103-110.

8. Dickson, B.J., Cline, H., Polleux, F., and Ghosh, A. (2001) Making connections. EMBO Reports
2: 182-186.
9. Dickson, B.J. (2001). Moving On (Perspectives). Science 291: 1910-1911.
10. Dickson, B.J. and Senti, K.-A. (2002) Axon Guidance: Growth cones make an unexpected turn.
Curr. Biol. 12: R218-R220
11. Dickson, B.J. and Keleman, K. (2002) Quick Guide: Netrins. Curr. Biol. 12: R154-R155.
12. Dickson, B.J. (2002) Molecular Mechanisms of Axon Guidance. Science 298: 1959-1964.
13. Dickson, B.J. (2003) Wiring the Brain with Insulin (Perspectives). Science 300: 440-441.
14. Schnorrer, F. and Dickson, B. J. (2004) Axon Guidance: Morphogens Show the Way. Curr. Biol.
14: R19-R21.
15. Dickson, B.J. and Walsh, C.A. (2004) Development: Editorial Overview. Curr. Op. Neurobiol.
14: 1-5.
16. Schnorrer, F. and Dickson, B. J. (2004) Muscle Building: Mechanisms of Myotube Guidance and
Attachment Site Selection. Developmental Cell 7: 9-20.
17. Holt, C.E. and Dickson, B.J. (2005) Sugar Codes for Axons? Neuron 46: 169-172.
18. Dickson, B.J. (2005) Wnts send axons up and down the spinal cord. Nature Neuroscience 8:
1130-1132.
19. Yu, J.Y. and Dickson, B.J. (2006) Sexual behaviour: Do a few dead neurons make the difference?
Curr. Biol. 16, 23-25.
20. Dickson B.J. and Gilestro, G.F. (2006) Regulation of commissural axon pathfinding by slit and its
robo receptors. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 22: 651-675.
21. Dickson, B.J. and Moser, E.I. (2008) Neurobiology of Behaviour: Editorial Overview. Curr. Op.
Neurobiol. 17: 672-674.
22. Yu, J.Y. and Dickson, B.J. (2008) Hidden female talent. (News and Views). Nature 453: 41-42.
23. Dickson, B.J. (2008) Wired for sex: the neurobiology of Drosophila mating decisions. Science
322: 904-909.
24. Dickson, B.J. and Zou, Y. (2010). Navigating intermediate targets: the nervous system midline.
Cold Spring Harbor Perspect. Biol. 2(8):a002055.