Claude Desplan, Ph.D.

Claude Desplan is a Silver Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at New York University. Born in Algeria, Desplan was trained at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in St. Cloud, France. In 1984, he joined Pat O’Farrell at the University of California, San Franscisco as a postdoc where he demonstrated that the homeodomain is a DNA binding motif. In 1987, he joined the Rockefeller University as an HHMI assistant/associate investigator to pursue structural studies of the homeodomain and the evolution of axis formation in Drosophila.

At New York University since 1999, he investigates the generation of neural diversity using the Drosophila visual system and how stochastic decisions contribute to the diversification of sensory neurons. He also uses ‘evo-devo’ approaches to understand the mechanisms by which sensory systems adapt to different ecological conditions, from flies to butterflies to ants.

Desplan is an elected member of EMBO, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.