Anne Ferguson-Smith

Pro Vice Chancellor, Research
University of Cambridge

Anne Ferguson-Smith is a mammalian developmental geneticist using mouse genetics to explore gene regulation and function. She is known for her work on genomic imprinting a process regulated by epigenetic mechanisms and applying imprinting as a model system to understand epigenetic regulation more widely. Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is the current Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. Formally, she was the University’s Head of the Department of Genetics until December 2020. An expert on genomic imprinting, her team studies the epigenetic control of genome function with particular emphasis on epigenetic inheritance. Her group is made up of both experimental and computational scientists and current research focuses on three themes: (i) Stem cells and the epigenetic programme, (ii) Functional genomics and epigenomics, and (iii) the interaction between the environment and development, health & disease within and across generations.

She was elected to EMBO in 2006, to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and the Society of Biology in 2012 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2017. In 2014 she was as awarded the Women in Science Heirloom Award for contributions to life sciences and in 2019 was awarded the Feldberg Prize. In 2021 she was awarded the Buchanan Medal by The Royal Society. She is a Fellow of Darwin College, University of Cambridge.