Hollis Cline

Dr. Hollis Cline is the Hahn Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Neuroscience at The Scripps Research Institute. She served as the Chair of the Neuroscience Department and the Director of the Dorris Neuroscience Center at the institute for eight years. She earned her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University of California, Berkeley. Holly joined Scripps Research in 2008 after 14 years at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she was a Professor of Neuroscience for 14 years and served as Director of Research. Throughout her career, she has received many honors, including the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award in 2005, which funded a large-scale project on understanding the architecture, development, and plasticity of brain circuits. In 2012, Dr. Cline was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor awarded by her peers. Dr. Cline’s work was recognized “for seminal studies of how sensory experience affects the development of brain structures and function and for generous national and international advisory service to neuroscience.” In 2022, she was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and in 2023, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served as a Council member for the National Eye Institute and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health, as well as on the Blue Ribbon Panel for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr. Cline has also served as President of the Society for Neuroscience.  

The goal of the research in the Cline lab is to determine the mechanisms by which brain activity affects the development and function of the brain.  The Cline lab has repeatedly been at the forefront of innovative technical advances, including in vivo time-lapse imaging, in vivo electroporation methods, viral gene transfer, serial section electron microscopy combined with in vivo time-lapse imaging (CLEM on steroids), whole animal electrophysiological recordings of visual responses and application of biorthogonal metabolic labeling of the activity-dependent nascent proteome. Studies in the Cline lab have made extensive use of Xenopus tadpoles, an experimental system amenable to multidisciplinary approaches applied to the intact animal, as well as rodents, and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to investigate mechanisms of brain development, plasticity and function. Her studies have increased understanding of mechanisms controlling neurogenesis, synapse formation and plasticity, structural development of neurons and assembly of functional circuits. Her research has led to the discovery that neuronal activity regulates the development of the visual system through a variety of mechanisms, including changes in neuronal structure, synaptic strength, synaptogenesis and gene/protein expression. Dr. Cline’s studies have relevance to healthy development and aging, as well neurodevelopmental and age-related neurological disorders.