Brigid Hogan

Brigid Hogan was born in the United Kingdom and earned a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. She did her Postdoctoral work in the the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was head of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the National Institute for Medical Research in London before moving to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville in 1988, where she was Founding Director of the Stem Cell and Organogenesis Program.

A pioneer and leader in the field of developmental biology, Dr. Hogam was the Scientific Co-chair of a National Institutes of Health report on human embryo research. Her work with primordial germ cells from the early mouse embryo led to the discovery of new ways of generating pluripotent stem cells, which have the widest application because they can develop into almost all known types of cell. As a result, she organized the first Molecular Embryology of the Mouse course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and edited the first two editions of Manipulating the Mouse Embryo: A Laboratory Manual, considered to be the “bible” of mammalian embryo manipulation techniques.

In 2002, Dr. Hogan transitioned from Vanderbilt to Duke University where she became the first female Department Chair in the Duke School of Medicine. She is currently Chair Emeritus of Duke’s Department of Cell Biology and George Barth Geller Distinguished Professor for Research in Molecular Biology.

Dr. Hogan has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards including:

• Served as President of the American Society for Developmental Biology and the American Society for Cell Biology
• Member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, European Molecular Biology Organization, and the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
• Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society of London
• Awarded the sixth International Society for Transgenic Technologies Prize in 2008
• Delivered the Croonian Lecture of the Royal Society of London in 2014
• Awarded the Society for Developmental Biology’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015

Having trained a generation of scientists in her pioneering techniques, Dr. Hogan has been recognized as a great advocate for young scientists in her field.