Robin Angus Silver - Curriculum Vitae#
Robin Angus Silver is Professor of Neuroscience at University College London, a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Education
- B.Sc. Physical Sciences (1st Class Hons), Coventry Polytechnic (1986)
- PhD. Physiology, University College London (1990)
Scientific contributions
Angus Silver’s international reputation arises from scientific discoveries in the fields of synaptic transmission, neuronal computation and network function, with most of his work focussing on information processing in cerebellar and neocortical circuits. Highlights include discovering several fundamental properties of central excitatory synapses and establishing how neurons perform elementary arithmetic operations. He identified the biophysical properties of electrical synapses on dendrites, showed that they could share chemical synaptic charge as well as mediate inhibition and facilitate spike desynchronization. He has also shown how the anatomical structure of a cortical circuit defines their ability to encode information and separate overlapping patterns of activity,
Many of Angus Silver’s discoveries were made possible through his development of innovative new methods for studying synaptic, neuronal and circuit function. These include statistical methods for quantifying the properties of central synapses and networks and the invention of a new type of high-speed two-photon microscope that uses a novel compact Acousto-Optic Lens 3D laser scanner.
Angus Silver has also made major contributions to new tools and infrastructure for modelling brain function. These include NeuroConstruct (www.Neuroconstruct.org) a tool for modeling neuronal circuits in 3D. He has taken leading roles in the development of NeuroML, a widely adopted standardised model description language for computational neuroscience (www.NeuroML.org) and OpenSourceBrain, an international initiative to develop a repository of standardised models of neurons and networks, together with open source software tools for collaborative development and validation of models. These resources (www.OpenSourceBrain.org) enables models to be visualised and simulated through the web browser in a format that is accessible to neurobiologists.
Enabling science
Angus Silver has promoted the field of neuroinformatics and sits on the steering committee of the UK Neuroinfromatics node. He sits on evaluation committees and interview panels for funding bodies including the Wellcome Trust/India Alliance Fellowship Scheme and the US BRAIN initiative. He has acted as an international expert and chair for AERES, evaluating CNRS research units.
Organization of international meetings & workshops (last 5 years)
- 2014 2nd OpenSourceBrain meeting, Alghero, Sardinia
- 2014 Jacques-Monod conference “Optical imaging of brain structure and function on multiple spatial scales”. Roscoff, France
- 2014 Open Collaboration in Computational Neuroscience, INCF Congress, Leiden, Netherlands.
- 2015 3rd OpenSourceBrain meeting, Alghero, Sardinia, Italy
- 2016 Collaborative of Data-Driven Models of Neural Systems. Janelia Research Campus. Ashburn, USA
- 2018 INCF Congress, Montreal, Canada
He has been invited to speak at more than 35 international meetings and seminars in the last 5 years.
