Tom Baden

University of Sussex
School of Life Sciences
UK
Lab website

Dr. Tom Baden is a full professor at the University of Sussex, UK. After his PhD (University of Cambridge), he worked as a postdoc in the laboratory of Prof. Leon Lagnado (MRC-LMB, Cambridge) and later at the University of Tuebingen with Prof. Thomas Euler.

Dr. Baden has a keen interest in understanding the evolution of neuronal computation. Here, the vertebrate retina presents a powerful model system. Vertebrate vision is almost as old as vertebrates themselves, first appearing more than 500 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. From here, different lineages evolved as vast range of visual specializations to help them thrive in their individual viso-ecological niches. By now looking at an animal'' retinal structure and function in the context of its natural environment and behavioural repertoire we might just gain new insights about how neuronal networks can be tuned on evolutionary timescales to attain new capabilities based on a common blueprint.