Sleep and Circadian Rhythms

Welcome to The University of Bristol’s Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Hub! 

We are a community of clinicians and neuroscientists whose interests lie in understanding these intrinsic biological processes. Research themes range from understanding how disrupted sleep impacts our physiology and mental health to the nuts and bolts that make our body clocks tick.

Read our researcher profiles

Aims of the hub: 

Organize network events – we put you in a room together with sandwiches and watch the collaborations form like a clock-cycle transcriptional complex at high noon

Facilitate collaborate grants- We hope networking will lead to the spawning of new interdisciplinary research proposals

Promote your research- We will celebrate your successes and share your news and job postings with the community on this website and through X (formerly Twitter)

Keep you up to date with latest publications-  We will run journal clubs and post links to exciting new papers which span all of our disciplines and model systems. We will also post information about relevant conferences.

Encourage public engagement – We will help you communicate your findings to the public and inform you on opportunities to engage with new communities

Help fund your research- Keep you updated with potential funding opportunities

View a list of people active in sleep and circadian rhythms research

Portrait of Alice French
Alice French, Hub co-Lead. I have recently started in the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience as a Research Fellow and Proleptic Lecturer in Neuroscience. With this newfound freedom I am exploring the behaviour of sensory systems during sleep and how animals remain vigilant whilst unconscious. I am also interested by more fundamental questions like "Why do we sleep?". By studying the effects of sleep deprivation on physiology and cognition in different species, I hope to understand the functions of sleep and whether these are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom.
Portrait of Lukasz Chrobok
Lukasz Chrobok, Hub co-Lead. I obtained my PhD from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow in 2017. Following a period of postdocing at the University of Manchester, then back in Krakow, and then again in the UK at the University in Exeter, I ended up in Bristol in 2022. Currently, I am a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow and a freshly baked Lecturer in Neuroscience in the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience. My research interests revolve around circadian timekeeping mechanisms outside the primary clock in the hypothalamus. My most recent work focuses on the circadian rhythms in the brainstem satiety centre, time-restricted eating, and circadian strategies to tackle obesity.
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