BSCB Newsletter, Autumn 2010 News Hooke Medal 2011 - Alex Gould It is with great pleasure that we announce Alex Gould of the MRC National Institute for Medical Research as the winner of the 2011 Hooke Medal. Alex was a Beit and MRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Robb Krumlauf at NIMR studying mammalian Hox gene expression before setting up his own laboratory in 1998, also at NIMR, to work on Drosophila. Alex has made important contributions to the field of developmental neurobiology; in particular, he and his group recently discovered and dissected the molecular mechanisms involved in regulating the timing of cell cycle exit in the Drosophila central nervous system, which was published in Cell in 2008. This work demonstrates that through developmental time, progenitor cells transduce bursts of transcription factors into long-lasting changes in cell proliferation and cell identity. Additionally, Alex's highly original work on lipid metabolism in Drosophila has led to the demonstration that Drosophila oenocyte cells perform some functions equivalent to those of the mammalian liver. This work opens up a new avenue of research on the relationship between food intake and the regulation of lipid metabolism during tissue growth. In 2005, Alex became a tenured Group Leader at NIMR and three years later was elected to EMBO membership. Alex will be presented with his medal and deliver his medal lecture at the 2011 Spring Meeting at the University of Kent, Canterbury.