Herwig Baier

Herwig Baier is a Professor of Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. He was trained as a developmental neurobiologist in Friedrich Bonhoeffer's laboratory at the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany, where he discovered that retinal axons responded to minute concentration differences of repellent factor from the optic tectum. In the latter half of his Ph.D. thesis and later as a postdoc with Bill Harris at the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Baier moved into the then-emerging field of zebrafish genetics to study the molecular and cellular underpinnings of visual circuit assembly and function. With Friedrich Bonhoeffer and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, he carried out the first large-scale forward-genetic screen for axon guidance mutants in a vertebrate system. With Bill Harris, he pioneered the use of zebrafish as a behavioral genetic model system. In 1997, at the age of 31, he was offered a faculty position at UCSF. Here his group conducted a comprehensive genetic analysis of visually guided behavior in zebrafish. This work led to the discovery of over 60 genetic loci that are involved in the function and refinement of neuronal circuits. Dr. Baier's group continues to be interested in synaptic layer formation, topographic mapping, and cell fate decisions in the visual pathway. More recently, the Baier lab has developed optical-genetic and chemical-genetic tools for the manipulation of neuronal function in zebrafish larvae, taking advantage of the transparency, small size, and aquatic lifestyle of this model organism. The goal of these studies is a complete dissection of circuitry underlying a complex innate behavior, from genes to action potentials. Dr. Baier's scientific accomplishments have been recognized by several awards and memberships. He was the recipient of a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship and a Klingenstein Fellowship and is a member of the graduate programs in neuroscience, genetics, and developmental biology at UCSF.