Rate My Professor Jason Rihe

Professor Jason Rihel is Professor of Behavioural Genetics in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Biosciences, at University College London. He leads the Rihel Lab, which investigates the genes and neuronal circuits regulating sleep using zebrafish as a vertebrate model organism. Research employs high-throughput automated video-tracking to monitor sleep-wake behaviors in larval zebrafish, CRISPR-Cas9 genetic screens to generate sleep mutants, large-scale behavioral pharmacology profiling over 6,000 small molecules, and in vivo calcium imaging with GCaMP to link neural activity to behavior. The lab explores sleep homeostasis, circadian regulation, and connections to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism through systematic testing of risk genes.

Rihel graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from West Virginia University in 1998, where he studied fruit fly circadian clock mutants in Jeff Price's laboratory. He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 2004 in Catherine Dulac's lab on a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellowship, developing single-cell gene expression methods for mouse pheromone detection studies. As a Bristol-Myers Squibb Life Sciences Research Fellow from 2004 to 2011, he worked in Alexander Schier's lab at NYU School of Medicine's Skirball Institute and Harvard, establishing molecular genetic tools for zebrafish sleep research alongside David Prober. Rihel joined UCL in March 2012 as Senior Research Fellow, advancing to Reader and then Professor of Behavioural Genetics in September 2020. He received a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award in Science in 2019 and Harvard's Distinction in Teaching Award in 2003. Rihel organizes third-year undergraduate courses Functional Genetics of Model Systems (CELL0013) and Circadian Rhythms and Sleep (CELL004). Notable publications include 'Zebrafish Behavioral Profiling Links Drugs to Biological Targets and Reveals a Novel Class of Neuroactive Compounds' (Science, 2010; 887 citations), 'Sleep pressure modulates single-neuron synapse dynamics in zebrafish' (Nature, 2024), 'Behavioural pharmacology predicts disrupted signalling pathways and candidate therapeutics from zebrafish mutants of Alzheimer's disease risk genes' (eLife, 2025), and 'Genetic and chemical disruption of Amyloid Precursor Protein processing impairs zebrafish sleep maintenance' (iScience, 2024). His research has over 7,700 citations.