David Keays

David Anthony Keays (born 15 March 1976) is an Australian neuroscientist. He studies magnetoreception and neurodevelopment and he is currently a group leader at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria.

David A. Keays
Born (1976-03-15) 15 March 1976
NationalityAustralian
Alma materUniversity of Queensland (BSc) University of Melbourne (Hons) Merton College, Oxford (DPhil)
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsIMP (Vienna)
Doctoral advisors
Websitehttp://keayslab.org

Education

Keays studied Science and Law at the University of Queensland. He received his honours degree from the University of Melbourne in 2000 with a thesis describing the isolation and discovery of a novel conotoxin with analgesic activity from the cone shell Conus victoriae.[1].

Career and research

In 2002, Keays was appointed as Christopher Welch Scholar by the University of Oxford and joined the lab of Jonathan Flint at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics to conduct research for a DPhil degree. During his degree he identified an ENU-induced mutation of α1 tubulin that resulted in abnormal cortical and hippocampal layering in mice. He went on to show that mutations in the human homolog of α1 tubulin, TUBA3, cause cortical brain malformations in humans[2].

He was awarded a DPhil in 2006 and became a Wellcome Trust OXION research fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford to continue his research on the molecular processes that drive neuronal migration during neuronal development.

When Keays started his own research group at the IMP in Vienna as an Independent Fellow, he decided to start a second research branch in his lab, investigating the molecular basis of magnetoreception. Using the pigeon as their model organism, his lab was able to show that iron-rich structures in the beaks of pigeons were not part of mangetosensitive neurons but iron deposits in macrophages[3].

In 2012 he was promoted to group leader at the IMP. Keays has received a FWF START Award and an ERC Starting Grant in 2014, as well as an ERC Consolidator grant in 2019[4].

Media coverage

David Attenborough refers to research findings from the Keays lab in Natural Curiosities Episode 2, Series 4[5]

References
  1. Sandall, D. W.; Satkunanathan, N.; Keays, D. A.; Polidano, M. A.; Liping, X.; Pham, V.; Down, J. G.; Khalil, Z.; Livett, B. G.; Gayler, K. R. (2003). "A Novel α-Conotoxin Identified by Gene Sequencing is Active in Suppressing the Vascular Response to Selective Stimulation of Sensory Nerves in Vivo†". Biochemistry. 42 (22): 6904–6911. doi:10.1021/bi034043e.
  2. Keays, David A.; Tian, Guoling; Poirier, Karine; Huang, Guo-Jen; Siebold, Christian; Cleak, James; Oliver, Peter L.; Fray, Martin; Harvey, Robert J.; Molnár, Zoltán; Piñon, Maria C.; Dear, Neil; Valdar, William; Brown, Steve D.M.; Davies, Kay E.; Rawlins, J. Nicholas P.; Cowan, Nicholas J.; Nolan, Patrick; Chelly, Jamel; Flint, Jonathan (2007). "Mutations in α-Tubulin Cause Abnormal Neuronal Migration in Mice and Lissencephaly in Humans". Cell. 128: 45–57. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2006.12.017. PMC 1885944.
  3. Treiber, Christoph Daniel; Salzer, Marion Claudia; Riegler, Johannes; Edelman, Nathaniel; Sugar, Cristina; Breuss, Martin; Pichler, Paul; Cadiou, Herve; Saunders, Martin; Lythgoe, Mark; Shaw, Jeremy; Keays, David Anthony (2012). "Clusters of iron-rich cells in the upper beak of pigeons are macrophages not magnetosensitive neurons". Nature. 484 (7394): 367–370. Bibcode:2012Natur.484..367T. doi:10.1038/nature11046.
  4. "People | keays lab".
  5. "BBC Two - David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities, Series 4, Finding the Way".
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