Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
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Professor Roger Pocock is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. Roger leads the Brain Development, Neuroplasticity and Stem Cells Laboratory in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology.
Roger grew up on the south coast of England where he entered the banking sector as a teenager. During his mid-twenties, Roger decided to completely change his career path and studied Genetics and Biochemistry at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth and at Washington State University in the USA.
Roger trained as a doctoral student at the University of Oxford from 2000-2004, where he was first introduced to his favourite model organism - the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. During this period, Roger worked on the transcriptional control of embryonic development before moving into the neuroscience field.
Upon completion of his doctorate, Roger commenced his postdoctoral work at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York City. Here, he again used C. elegans but now to study how the nervous system senses and responds to environmental stress. This work produced ground-breaking studies in the field of hypoxia (low oxygen), insights into which are now being used to design drugs to prevent brain defects in premature newborn babies.
In 2010, Roger started his own research group at the University of Copenhagen. The focus of his research during the early phase of his laboratory was to delineate functions of microRNAs in neuronal development and function, in addition to the control of neuronal fate programming by transcription factors. The Pocock laboratory has already yielded important insights into the genetic control of such decisions. Roger's laboratory continues to decipher mechanisms that control brain development, function and determinants of brain-intestinal communication.
In January 2015, Roger received a Biomedicine Discovery Fellowship and a veski Innovation Fellowship to relocate his laboratory from Denmark to the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at Monash University. In 2017, Roger was awarded a NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship for his work on brain-intestinal communication.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
External positions
Victoria State Representative, Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology
2017 → 2019
Research area keywords
- Caenorhabditis elegans
- Neurobiology
- Stem Cells
- Transcription factors
- microRNAs
- Cell fate
- Axon guidance
- Cell migration
- Fertility
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Characterization of the Germline Regulatory Landscape
Pocock, R. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Cao, W. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Fan, Q. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Hutt, K. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Gopal, S. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Schittenhelm, R. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Hobbs, R. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Archer, S. (Associate Investigator (AI)) & Coutts, S. (Associate Investigator (AI))
1/01/23 → 31/12/27
Project: Research
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in vivo removal of alpha-synuclein aggregates in a Parkinson's disease model
Pocock, R. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)) & Ejlerskov, P. (Chief Investigator (CI))
1/02/21 → 31/01/22
Project: Research
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Automatic quantitative locomotion and behaviour phenotyping setup for small animals
Kaslin, J. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Currie, P. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Ruparelia, A. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Pocock, R. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Ramialison, M. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Martino, M. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Lieschke, G. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Nillegoda, N. (Chief Investigator (CI)) & Anko, M.-L. (Chief Investigator (CI))
1/01/21 → 31/12/21
Project: Research
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Transcriptional control of germ cell development
Pocock, R. & Gopal, S.
National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) (Australia)
1/01/20 → 31/12/22
Project: Research
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Investigating a novel factor impacting stem cell development
Pocock, R. & Gopal, S.
1/01/20 → 31/12/23
Project: Research
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The ETS-5 transcription factor regulates activity states in Caenorhabditis elegans by controlling satiety
Juozaityte, V., Pladevall-Morera, D., Podolska, A., Norgaard, S., Neumann, B. & Pocock, R., 28 Feb 2017, In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 114, 9, p. E1651-E1658 8 p., 1610673114.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
27 Citations (Scopus) -
An epidermal microRNA regulates neuronal migration through control of the cellular glycosylation state
Pedersen, M. E., Snieckute, G., Kagias, K., Nehammer, C., Multhaupt, H. A. B., Couchman, J. R. & Pocock, R. D. J., 2013, In: Science. 341, 6152, p. 1404 - 1408 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
70 Citations (Scopus) -
Hypoxia activates a latent circuit for processing gustatory information in C. elegans
Pocock, R. D. J. & Hobert, O., 2010, In: Nature Neuroscience. 13, 5, p. 610 - 614 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
96 Citations (Scopus) -
A nucleic acid binding protein map of germline regulation in Caenorhabditis elegans
Cao, W., Fan, Q., Amparado, G., Begic, D., Godini, R., Gopal, S. & Pocock, R., Dec 2024, In: Nature Communications. 15, 1, 14 p., 6884.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open Access -
A sphingolipid message promotes neuronal health across generations
Wang, W. & Pocock, R. D. J., Nov 2024, In: Neural Regeneration Research. 19, 11, p. 2325-2326 2 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment / Debate › Other › peer-review
Open Access
Activities
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Genetics Society of America (Publisher)
Roger Pocock (Associate editor)
2021 → …Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Editorial responsibility
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Australian Functional Genomics Conference
Roger Pocock (Invited speaker)
2019 → …Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
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Australian National University (ANU)
Roger Pocock (Visiting researcher)
2019 → …Activity: Visiting an external institution types › Visiting an external academic institution
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European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) (Germany)
Roger Pocock (Visiting academic)
2019 → …Activity: Visiting an external institution types › Visiting an external academic institution
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Australian C. elegans Symposium 2019
Roger Pocock (Organiser)
2019 → …Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference