Group Members
We are looking for new PhD students, Postdocs, and Master’s students to join the team!
Jump to current lab members, lab alumni, or former project students.
Team
Erik Clark
Group Leader
I grew up in London and studied Biological Sciences at Oxford, where I became interested in evo-devo and anterior-posterior patterning. After a computational MSc at Imperial, I did my PhD in the Cambridge Department of Zoology with Michael Akam, studying Drosophila pair-rule gene regulation. As a postdoc I continued to work on Drosophila segmentation and its evolution, funded by a Junior Research Fellowship from Trinity College Cambridge and an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship hosted in Angela DePace’s lab in Harvard Medical School. In 2023 I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Career Development Award to set up my research group in the Cambridge Department of Genetics. Alongside research I teach developmental biology and mathematical modelling for undergraduate and MPhil courses. Outside of the lab, most of my time is spent with my kids. When they’re sleeping, I enjoy reading, history, and games.
contact: ec491@cam.ac.uk Google Scholar ORCiD
Margherita Battistara
Postdoc
I studied Environmental Sciences at the University of Padova before moving to Munich for a Master’s in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics, where I became fascinated by how gene regulation shapes development and evolution. In 2018 I joined the Wellcome Trust Developmental Mechanisms programme at Cambridge, completing my PhD with Ewa Paluch and Matt Benton on the cellular behaviours driving gastrulation in Drosophila and Tribolium, combining live imaging with quantitative analysis. In 2025 I joined the Clark Lab, where I use live imaging to study segmentation in Drosophila and investigate Tribolium as a comparative model for understanding how segmentation mechanisms evolve. Outside the lab, I enjoy writing fiction, cycling and singing in a choir.
contact: mb2258@cam.ac.uk BlueSky LinkedIn
James Hammond
Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow
I grew up in Moray and completed my undergraduate degree in Biology and Mathematics at the University of St Andrews in 2020. Here I fell in love with segmentation and evo-devo, and in 2020 I joined Berta Verd’s group at the University of Oxford to study somitogenesis in the Lake Malawi cichlids Astatotilapia calliptera and Rhamphochromis sp. ‘chilingali’. In 2025 I joined the Clark Lab, where I am using a combination of mathematical modelling and microscopy to study the evolution of robust gap gene patterning in Diptera. Outside of the lab I’m a keen lepidopterist, birdwatcher, and hillwalker.
contact: jh2046@cam.ac.uk Google Scholar BlueSky
Tom Pettini
Postdoc
I studied my degree in Biology in Leeds, and my PhD in Manchester working on the mechanisms of long non-coding RNAs in Hox gene regulation in Drosophila. During postdocs in Manchester, I started using single-molecule in-situ to address questions that required RNA counting at the single cell level, in both cultured neural stem cells, and Drosophila embryos. Since moving to Cambridge, I have been applying high resolution imaging to study changes in motor-neuron connectivity in response to environmental inputs during development, and most recently have been using highly multiplexed HCR to study gap gene patterning in the early Drosophila embryo. I’m currently devising some new imaging and staining strategies involving fluorescence lifetime separation, to push the number of genes that can be imaged together on the same sample beyond 10, and to enhance single-molecule detection methods. My aim is to then apply these techniques to study roles of long non-coding RNAs in regulation of segmentation genes, and the mechanisms of enhancer-promoter interaction. Outside of the lab, I enjoy nature photography, fossil hunting, and designing T-shirts.
contact: tp526@cam.ac.uk
Maciej (Maciek) Żurowski
PhD student, funded by the Cambridge Trust
I grew up in Kraków in Poland and moved to the UK to study Natural Sciences at Cambridge. During my studies, thanks to my supervisors and Summer research projects I got interested in evo-devo of patterning, interplay between modelling and experimental biology, and regulation of gene expression. I explored these interests further during my Bachelor’s and Master’s projects on the patterning of Hibiscus trionum petals in Edwige Moyroud’s and Renske Vroomans’ labs respectively, approaching the question from both the wet lab and computational perspectives. In 2024 I got funding from the Cambridge Trust to do a PhD in the Clark lab. I am using microscopy, molecular biology, and modelling to look at the regulation and function of bHLH genes in Drosophila segmentation. I also supervise first year Natural Sciences undergrads for IA Biomolecules and Cells, and I’m a trainer for the Cambridge Centre for Research Informatics Training. Outside of the lab I am an amateur cook and baker, and I enjoy playing both video and board games.
contact: mmz27@cam.ac.uk Google Scholar ORCiD BlueSky
This could be you!
Newest member of the team
See lab openings for more info.
contact: ec491@cam.ac.uk
Lab Alumni
Swanee Douglas
MPhil student, Oct 2024 - Aug 2025
Swanee spent a year in the lab as part of the MPhil course in Developmental Biology. Her project was focused on analysing segment-polarity and pair-rule gene patterns in fine detail. Over the course of the project she helped to greatly improve our multiplexed imaging protocols and had success in multiple image competitions.
Next destination: PhD student, University of Oxford
Aishani Chakraborty
Research Assistant, Oct 2023 - Jan 2025
Aishani was our very first lab member. She helped set up the wet-lab and worked on establishing our imaging methods and fly lines.
Next destination: PhD student, Monash University
Former Project Students
Lucy Underwood
Part III Systems Biology project student, 2025-26
Next destination: PGCE student, University of Cambridge
Anna Levandovskiy
Part II project student, 2025-26
Next destination: PhD student, Sanger Institute
Landy Zhou
Part II project student, 2024-25
Next destination: PhD student, University of Edinburgh
Gemma Imrie
Richard Wilson Research Bursary exchange student, summer 2024
Next destination: Final year of Genetics degree, University of Glasgow