Rate My Professor Caleb Webber

Professor Caleb Webber serves as Professor in the Dementia Research Institute within the School of Medicine at Cardiff University. He is a Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at Cardiff and has held the position of UK DRI Director of Data Science since 2022. His research integrates state-of-the-art stem cell models, including induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neurons and glia, with bioinformatics approaches to elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying Parkinson’s disease. The Webber lab identifies novel risk genes, assesses their effects on neuron function, and applies advanced computational methods to understand how genetic risk factors shape clinical symptom variability. This work seeks to highlight key biological pathways amenable to therapeutic intervention for Parkinson’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders sharing molecular etiologies.

Webber’s contributions span single-cell transcriptomics, genomic analyses, and cellular modeling of neurodegeneration. Recent publications include 'Changes in neural progenitor lineage composition during astrocytic differentiation of human iPSCs' (eLife, 2025, with Z. Li et al.), 'Modeling common Alzheimer’s disease with high and low polygenic risk in human iPSC: A large-scale research resource' (Stem Cell Reports, 2025, with E. Maguire et al.), 'A single nuclear transcriptomic characterisation of mechanisms responsible for impaired angiogenesis and blood-brain barrier function in Alzheimer’s disease' (Nature Communications, 2024, with S. Tsartsalis et al.), 'Demultiplexing of single-cell RNA-sequencing data using interindividual variation in gene expression' (Bioinformatics Advances, 2024, with I. Nassiri et al.), and 'Spatial mapping of genetic liability to psychiatric disorders in the adult human hippocampus' (Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, 2026, with Y. Baran et al.). Earlier influential papers encompass 'Epistasis in neuropsychiatric disorders' (Trends in Genetics, 2017) and 'Forging links between human mental retardation-associated CNVs and mouse gene knockout models' (PLoS Genetics, 2009). Previously at the University of Oxford, including the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre, Webber joined the UK DRI at Cardiff University to advance these efforts.