Mike Bate

Christopher Michael Bate FRS (born 1943) is an Emeritus Professor of developmental biology at the Department of Zoology and fellow at King's College, Cambridge. Mike Bate is a member of European Molecular Biology Organization.

His research is concerned with the way in which the machinery underlying coordinated movement is assembled during embryonic development. This involves both the analysis of the way in which muscles are assembled, specified and patterned, and the investigation of the way in which motor circuits are generated and begin to function.

Bate worked with the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster and applied a combination of genetic, molecular and cellular techniques to bear on the issues of neuromuscular development. Mike Bate also worked on the genetic basis of myoblast recruitment and fusion and on an electrophysiological and structural analysis of the way in which functional properties are acquired by embryonic neurons.