Marine Biological Laboratory

Friday Evening Lecture Series

07/06/07

How Flies Fly
Michael H. Dickinson, California Institute of Technology
Introduction by Scott E. Fraser, California Institute of Technology

View the podcast (Real Media format)

Lecture Abstract:
Whether circling garbage cans or cruising through alpine meadows, flies impress us with their aerial agility. Like all forms of locomotion, flight behavior results from a complex set of interactions, not just within circuits in the brain, but among neurons, muscles, skeletal elements, and physical process within the external world. To control flight, an insect’s nervous system must generate a code of motor information that plays out through a small but complicated set of power and steering muscles. The animal’s motion through space alters the stream of information that runs through an array of visual, chemical, and mechanical sensors, which collectively provide feedback to stabilize flight and orient the animal towards specific targets. The goal of the research in my laboratory is to ‘reverse engineer’ this flight control system, and thus determine the means by which the nervous system controls the animal’s trajectory through space.

Michael Dickinson is the Abe Zarem Professor of Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology. He was previously a member of the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Chicago. Dr. Dickinson’s research focuses on insect flight behavior, which links a series of fundamental processes within both the physical and biological sciences: neuronal signaling within brains, the dynamics of unsteady fluid flow, the structural mechanics of composite materials, and the behavior of complex nonlinear systems. The aim of his research is to elucidate the means by which flies accomplish their aerodynamic feats, with the long-term goal of developing a model that can provide insight to the behavior and robustness of complex systems in general. Dr. Dickinson received a Sc.B. in neural sciences from Brown University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington in 1989. He has served as the course director for the MBL’s Neural Systems and Behavior course since 2004. Dr. Dickinson is a member of several professional organizations, including the Society of Neuroscience, International Society of Neuroethology, and Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship, the Bartholomew Award for Physiology from the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology, and David and Lucille Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering.

Scott E. Fraser will introduce Dr. Dickinson. Dr. Fraser has shaped his research career at the MBL, having taken the Embryology course in 1977 and worked as a Grass Foundation Fellow in 1979. He has a long-standing interest in the imaging and molecular analysis of intact biological systems, and has been active in developing new technologies for novel assays. Dr. Fraser has been the Anna L. Rosen Professor of Biology and Director of the Biological Imaging Center at the Beckman Institute at the California Institute of Technology since 1991, and the Director of the Caltech Brain Imaging Center since 2002. Before Caltech, he served on the faculty and as the chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Fraser earned his B.S. with honors in physics from Harvey Mudd College and his Ph.D. in biophysics with Distinction from Johns Hopkins University. He has been active in the advanced training of interdisciplinary students and post-doctoral fellows, serving as the co-director of the MBL’s Embryology course (with Marianne Bronner-Fraser) from 1997 to 2001 and co-director of Caltech’s Initiative in Computational Molecular Biology (with Professor Michael Roukes). Dr. Fraser is involved in many professional societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Developmental Biology, and the American Society for Cell Biology. He is Editor of the journal Developmental Biology. His teaching has earned recognition: the Silver Beaker Award for Best Medical School Faculty Member, the Kaiser-Permanente Award for Best Medical School Teaching, and the Caltech Graduate Mentoring Award. Dr. Fraser was also awarded the McKnight Scholar Award, the Marcus Singer Medal, and was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the European Academy of Science.