Patrick Western

Dr Patrick Western is interested in understanding the signalling and epigenetic processes underlying sex-specific establishment of the germ-line and the impact of transmitted epigenetic information on the next generation.

After completing his doctoral studies on temperature dependent sex determination in the American alligator, he moved to the UK to complete postdoctoral training at Cambridge University. Working in Professor Azim Surani’s laboratory at the Wellcome Trust Gurdon Institute, Cambridge University he studied the reacquisition of pluripotency in differentiated somatic cells and identified novel genes associated with pluripotency in embryonic stem cells and germ cells. In 2003, Dr Western joined the ARC Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development where he pursued an interest in germ cell development with focus on sex-specific differentiation of germ cells and the molecular and epigenetic regulation of germ cell pluripotency. In 2011, Dr Western established the Germ Cell Development and Epigenetics Group within the Centre for Genetic Diseases (formerly Reproduction and Development) at Hudson Institute of Medical Research.