Wes Grueber

Principal Investigator

Wes Grueber is a Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, and Neuroscience, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  The main interests of the lab are in the development and function of somatosensory and interoceptive systems.  He is an Investigator in the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Co-Director of the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior, and Assistant Dean of Career Development and Associate Director of Biomedical Graduate Training in the Vagelos Institute of Biomedical Research Education (VIBRE). He has been the principal investigator of two NIH R25 grants aimed at early neuroscience training for undergraduates and postbaccalaureates and is PI of the NIH T32 training grant supporting graduate training in the Neurobiology and Behavior doctoral program.

Education and Research Positions

Wes received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine in 1993. He worked with Dr. Tim Bradley on the evolution and physiology of increased salinity tolerance in Aedes mosquitoes. He earned his PhD in Zoology at the University of Washington in 2000 studying sensory system physiology and nitric oxide signaling in the moth Manduca sexta with Dr. James Truman. Following his PhD, Wes studied aspects of Anopheles mosquito development underlying population dynamics and incidence of malaria at the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Nairobi and Kilifi, Kenya. He moved on to his postdoctoral research studying dendrite development in Drosophila in the lab of Dr. Yuh-Nung Jan at UCSF from 2001-2005. He joined the faculty at Columbia University Medical Center in 2005 and became an investigator of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute in June 2015.