Christine Holt is Professor of Developmental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and is internationally distinguished for her research on a fundamental problem of animal development – how growing axons form topographic maps with the target neurons in the developing brain. She pioneered the imaging of growing axons in vivo and showed that axons can navigate and branch in the midbrain even when separated from their cell bodies, thereby proving that the growing axon tips can act autonomously in guiding axons. She has developed further methods to identify, at a molecular level, how retinal axons decide whether or not to cross from one side of the brain to the other, and how they are guided to the correct part of the midbrain. This work has included the unexpected identification of a possible role for a gene-regulatory protein, or transcription factor, in the guidance process. This work has also led to the recognition that growth cone regeneration after injury is critically dependent on local protein synthesis, and suggests novel approaches in the future for promoting nerve regeneration.