Scott Berry
Gene regulation with single cell resolution
Scott Berry wants to uncover the basic mechanisms in a cell involved in controlling gene expression. While DNA encodes the genetic blueprint for development, other factors – including environmental signals, hormones, stress – influence when and how much of these genes are active within our cells.
Stem cells have the potential to develop into any cell type, and which genes are switched on or off at different stages of development ultimately shape their fate.
Scott’s team use new imaging technologies coupled with computational analysis to accurately measure gene expression within individual cells, and visualise many different proteins at a time. Together with statistical analysis methods and mathematical modelling, this approach provides insight into the interplay between gene expression and cell states or fates.
Learn more about research in the Gene Regulation Group.
About Scott Berry (he/him)
Scott Berry has a background in both Biology and Theoretical Physics. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Adelaide, he worked with these disciplines and then studied Honours in Theoretical Physics at The University of Western Australia. Scott then moved to the UK to study a PhD in Epigenetics at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, where he worked on flowering time control in plants – together with Martin Howard and Caroline Dean. There, he began to combine theoretical techniques from Physics together with Genetics, Molecular Biology and Microscopy. Shifting from plants to mammalian cells, Scott then joined the lab of Lucas Pelkmans at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, where he was funded by European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) and Human Frontiers Science Programme (HFSP) postdoctoral fellowships. In Zurich, Scott became immersed in the rapidly expanding world of ‘quantitative single-cell biology’. He was recruited as a group leader to Single Molecule Science (SMS) at UNSW Sydney in 2021.
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