Mike Bate

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Christopher Michael Bate (born in 1943) is a Professor of developmental biology at the Department of zoology at the University of Cambridge. His research is concerned with the way in which the machinery underlying coordinated movement is assembled during embryonic development. On the one hand this involves an analysis of the way in which muscles are assembled, specified and patterned and on the other an investigation of the way in which motor circuits are generated and begin to function.

His group works with the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster and brings a combination of genetic, molecular and cellular techniques to bear on the issues of neuromuscular development. At the moment Mike Bate is working on the genetic basis of myoblast recruitment and fusion and on an electrophysiological and structural analysis of the way in which functional properties are acquired by embryonic neurons.