Dr. Clegg earned his BS degree in biochemistry at UC Davis and his PhD in biochemistry at UC Berkeley, where he used emerging methods in recombinant DNA to study the sensory transduction systems of bacteria. As a Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Scholar at UCSF, he studied neural development and regeneration. He has continued this avenue of research since joining the UCSB faculty, with a current emphasis in stem cell research. Dr. Clegg is the recipient of the UCSB Distinguished Teaching Award in the Physical Sciences, and served as Chair of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from 2004-2009. He is a member of the UCSB Neuroscience Research Institute and Co-Director of the UCSB Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering. He is a Co-Principal Investigator of The California Project to Cure Blindness, a multi-disciplinary effort to develop a stem cell therapy for Age-Related Macular Degeneration. In thespirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

A team led by Stem Cell Center Professor Ken Kosik has found that pluripotent cells can be defined by their microRNA expression profiles, and differences are related to expression of p53 and p53-controlled genes. Results were published in Cell Stem Cell, with Pierre Neveu and Min Kye as first authors.