Thomas Jessell

Jessell, a British-American neuroscientist based at Columbia University, uncovered the molecular signals that pattern the developing spinal cord and specify the different classes of neurons that control movement. His work explained how motor circuits are built and became foundational to developmental neuroscience. Public biographies of Jessell do not document any Jewish ancestry, so none is asserted here. Jinfo.org records his mother as coming from an assimilated German-Jewish family.