Gene E. Robinson

Last updated
Gene E. Robinson
Born (1955-01-09) January 9, 1955 (age 69) [1]
Alma mater Cornell University
Awards Fulbright scholar
Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Scientific career
Institutions University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [2]

Gene Ezia Robinson (born January 9, 1955) is an American entomologist, Director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and National Academy of Sciences member. He pioneered the application of genomics to the study of social behavior and led the effort to sequence the honey bee genome. [3] On February 10, 2009, his research was famously featured in an episode of The Colbert Report whose eponymous host referred to the honey Dr. Robinson sent him as "pharmaceutical-grade hive jive".

Contents

Life and education

After acquiring his bachelor's in biology from Cornell University, Robinson went on to earn his Ph.D. in entomology from Cornell in 1986. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1989. Currently, Robinson is the Director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois and a Swanlund and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Entomology, with affiliate appointments in the Neuroscience Program, the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, the Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

Work and discoveries

Authoring or co-authoring over 250 publications, Robinson has made a wide range of fundamental advances in understanding the endocrine, neural, and genetic regulation of behavior at the individual and colony levels in honey bees. His discoveries have significantly advanced the understanding of the role of genes, hormones, and neurochemicals in the mechanisms and evolution of social behavior.

Robinson's lab discovered the first gene known to be involved in regulating the bee colony's famous division of labor, and in 2002 published this in Science. [4] The very next year, Robinson's lab was the first to show that social information causes mass changes in brain gene expression, also publishing this in Science . [5]

Robinson's discovery on social regulation of brain gene expression has had a profound effect on understanding the roots of behavior. He developed a new paradigm to address the age-old “nature-nurture” problem, which was published in 2004 in an essay in Science [6] and an op-ed in The New York Times . [7]

In October 2006, a collection of biologists, led by Robinson, successfully published the sequence of the honey bee, Apis mellifera , together with the Baylor Human Genome Sequencing Center (HGSC). [8] This discovery spurred an explosion of new bee research in molecular biology and genomics. Together with Harris Lewin and W. John Kress, Robinson helped organize the whole genome consortium the Earth BioGenome Project.

More recently, Robinson was part of a team that has discovered a plausible cause of colony collapse disorder, a malady that in 2007-2008 killed off more than one third of commercial honey bees in the U.S. By analyzing differences in gene expression between healthy and infected honey bees, researchers learned that bees in CCD hives have unusually high levels of fragmented ribosomal RNA, a symptom of infection with multiple viruses.

Honors and awards

University Scholar and member of the Center of Advanced Study at the University of Illinois; Burroughs Wellcome Innovation Award in Functional Genomics; G. William Arends Professor of Integrative Biology; Certificate of Distinction from the International Congress of Entomology; Founders Memorial Award from the Entomological Society of America; Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship; Guggenheim Fellowship; NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2009); [9] Fellow, Animal Behavior Society; Fellow, Entomological Society of America; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004); [10] Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2005), [11] and of the National Academy of Medicine (2018). In 2015, Robinson received an honorary doctoral degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem for "his scientific leadership and groundbreaking contribution to the molecular basis of social behavior". [12] In 2018, Robinson received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture for leading the genomics revolution in the organismal and population biology of the honey bee. [13] [14]

Related Research Articles

Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon that causes genes to be expressed or not, depending on whether they are inherited from the female or male parent. Genes can also be partially imprinted. Partial imprinting occurs when alleles from both parents are differently expressed rather than complete expression and complete suppression of one parent's allele. Forms of genomic imprinting have been demonstrated in fungi, plants and animals. In 2014, there were about 150 imprinted genes known in mice and about half that in humans. As of 2019, 260 imprinted genes have been reported in mice and 228 in humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Woese</span> American microbiologist (1928–2012)

Carl Woese was an American microbiologist and biophysicist. Woese is famous for defining the Archaea in 1977 through a pioneering phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal RNA, a technique that has revolutionized microbiology. He also originated the RNA world hypothesis in 1967, although not by that name. Woese held the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair and was professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Africanized bee</span> Hybrid species of bee

The Africanized bee, also known as the Africanized honey bee (AHB) and colloquially as the "killer bee", is a hybrid of the western honey bee, produced originally by crossbreeding of the East African lowland honey bee (A. m. scutellata) with various European honey bee subspecies such as the Italian honey bee (A. m. ligustica) and the Iberian honey bee (A. m. iberiensis).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waggle dance</span> Honey bees particular figure-eight dance

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new nest-site locations with other members of the colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thelytoky</span> Type of parthenogenesis in which females are produced from unfertilized eggs

Thelytoky is a type of parthenogenesis and is the absence of mating and subsequent production of all female diploid offspring as for example in aphids. Thelytokous parthenogenesis is rare among animals and reported in about 1,500 species, about 1 in 1000 of described animal species, according to a 1984 study. It is more common in invertebrates, like arthropods, but it can occur in vertebrates, including salamanders, fish, and reptiles such as some whiptail lizards.

Vitellogenin is a precursor of egg yolk that transports protein and some lipid from the liver through the blood to the growing oocytes where it becomes part of the yolk. Normally, it is only found in the blood or hemolymph of females, and can therefore be used as a biomarker in vertebrates of exposure to environmental estrogens which stimulate elevated levels in males as well as females. "Vitellogenin" is a synonymous term for the gene and the expressed protein. The protein product is classified as a glycolipoprotein, having properties of a sugar, fat and protein. It belongs to a family of several lipid transport proteins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haplodiploidy</span> Biological system where sex is determined by the number of sets of chromosomes

Haplodiploidy is a sex-determination system in which males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid, and females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid. Haplodiploidy is sometimes called arrhenotoky.

The Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Consortium is an international collaborative group of genomics scientists, scientific organisations and universities trying to decipher the genome sequences of the honey bee. It was formed in 2001 by American scientists. In the US, the project is funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, the University of Illinois Sociogenomics Initiative, and various beekeepers association and the bee industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western honey bee</span> European honey bee

The western honey bee or European honey bee is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee", and mellifera is the Latin for "honey-bearing" or "honey carrying", referring to the species' production of honey.

The genetics of social behavior is an area of research that attempts to address the question of the role that genes play in modulating the neural circuits in the brain which influence social behavior. Model genetic species, such as D.melanogaster and Apis mellifera, have been rigorously studied and proven to be instrumental in developing the science of genetics. Many examples of genetic factors of social behavior have been derived from a bottom-up method of altering a gene and observing the change it produces in an organism. Sociogenomics is an integrated field that accounts for the complete cellular genetic complement of an organism from a top-down approach, accounting for all biotic influences that effect behavior on a cellular level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horizontal gene transfer in evolution</span> Evolutionary consequences of transfer of genetic material between organisms of different taxa

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) refers to the transfer of genes between distant branches on the tree of life. In evolution, it can scramble the information needed to reconstruct the phylogeny of organisms, how they are related to one another.

Nancy A. Moran is an American evolutionary biologist and entomologist, University of Texas Leslie Surginer Endowed Professor, and co-founder of the Yale Microbial Diversity Institute. Since 2005, she has been a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. Her seminal research has focused on the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum and its bacterial symbionts including Buchnera (bacterium). In 2013, she returned to the University of Texas at Austin, where she continues to conduct research on bacterial symbionts in aphids, bees, and other insect species. She has also expanded the scale of her research to bacterial evolution as a whole. She believes that a good understanding of genetic drift and random chance could prevent misunderstandings surrounding evolution. Her current research goal focuses on complexity in life-histories and symbiosis between hosts and microbes, including the microbiota of insects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert E. Page Jr.</span> Honey bee geneticist

Robert E. Page Jr. is one of the foremost honey bee geneticists in the world and a Foundation Chair of Life Sciences of Arizona State University. An author of more than 250 research papers and articles, his work on the self-organizing regulatory networks of honey bees has been outlined in his book, "The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution," published by Harvard University Press in 2013. Page currently holds the titles of Arizona State University Provost Emeritus and Regents Professor Emeritus. He is also chair and professor emeritus at the University of California-Davis and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute.

The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) is an interdisciplinary facility for genomics research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Institute was built in 2006 to centralize biotechnology research at the University of Illinois. Current research at the IGB explores the genomic bases of a wide range of phenomena, including the progression of cancer, the ecological impact of global change, tissue and organ growth, and the diversity of animal behavior.

Epigenetics in insects is the role that epigenetics plays in insects.

Harris A. Lewin, an American biologist, is a professor of evolution and ecology and Robert and Rosabel Osborne Endowed Chair at the University of California, Davis. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2011, Lewin won the Wolf Prize in Agriculture for his research into cattle genomics. Lewin chairs the working group for the Earth BioGenome Project, a moonshot for biology that aims to sequence, catalog, and characterize the genomes of all of Earth’s eukaryotic biodiversity over a period of 10 years. Lewin is a founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, first published in 2013.

Jonathan V Sweedler is an American chemist specializing in bioanalytical chemistry, neurochemistry and cell to cell biology and behavior. He is the James R. Eiszner Family Endowed Chair in Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Additionally, he holds a faculty appointment in the Beckman Institute. He is also an Elected Fellow to the American Chemical Society, for which he is also the society's Editor in Chief for the journal Analytical Chemistry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Ainsworth</span> American molecular biologist

Elizabeth Anna Ainsworth is an American plant physiologist currently employed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS). She also is an adjunct professor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was awarded the 2018 Crop Science Society of America Presidential Award. She is known for her work concerning the effects of specific atmospheric pollutants, including ozone and carbon dioxide, on the productivity of selected major crops such as corn and soybeans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald R. Ort</span> American botanist and biochemist

Donald Richard Ort is an American botanist and biochemist. He is the Robert Emerson Professor of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he works on improving crop productivity and resilience to climate change by redesigning photosynthesis. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB).

The African BioGenome Project, or AfricaBP, is an international effort to sequence the genomes of all animals, all plants, all fungi, and all protists that are native to Africa at an estimated cost of $1 billion U.S. dollars. The project prioritizes doing its sequencing work and data storage within the African continent.

References

  1. ↑ "Gene E. Robinson Curriculum Vitae. Retrieved March 13, 2015". Archived from the original on August 2, 2015. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  2. ↑ Robinson, G. E. (1992). "Regulation of Division of Labor in Insect Societies". Annual Review of Entomology. 37: 637–665. doi:10.1146/annurev.en.37.010192.003225. PMID   1539941.
  3. ↑ Zagorski, N. (2006). "Profile of Gene E. Robinson". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (44): 16065–16067. Bibcode:2006PNAS..10316065Z. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0608392103 . PMC   1637537 . PMID   17065325.
  4. ↑ Ben-Shahar, Y.; Robichon, A.; Sokolowski, M. B.; Robinson, G. E. (2002). "Influence of Gene Action Across Different Time Scales on Behavior". Science. 296 (5568): 741–744. Bibcode:2002Sci...296..741B. doi:10.1126/science.1069911. PMID   11976457. S2CID   42350832. (reported in NY Times, Washington Post, German Public Radio, South African Public Radio, Genome News Network; included in Perspectives of Animal Behavior 3rd ed., Goodenough et al.; Animal Behavior, Alcock)
  5. ↑ Whitfield, C. W.; Cziko, A. M.; Robinson, G. E. (2003). "Gene Expression Profiles in the Brain Predict Behavior in Individual Honey Bees". Science. 302 (5643): 296–299. Bibcode:2003Sci...302..296W. doi:10.1126/science.1086807. PMID   14551438. S2CID   30489284. (reported in Reuters, CNN.com, St. Louis Dispatch, Wall Street Journal, Belgium De Standaard; included in Perspectives of Animal Behavior 3rd ed., Goodenough et al.; Animal Behavior, Alcock)
  6. ↑ Robinson, G. E. (2004). "GENOMICS: Beyond Nature and Nurture". Science. 304 (5669): 397–399. doi:10.1126/science.1095766. PMID   15087536. S2CID   25111728.
  7. ↑ Robinson, G.E. 2004. The behavior of genes. New York Times op-ed, 13 December
  8. ↑ Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium (2006). "Insights into social insects from the genome of the honeybee Apis mellifera". Nature. 443 (7114): 931–949. Bibcode:2006Natur.443..931T. doi:10.1038/nature05260. PMC   2048586 . PMID   17073008.
  9. ↑ "2009 Pioneer Award Recipients". NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program. National Institutes of Health. Archived from the original on July 29, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2011.
  10. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter R" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Retrieved September 17, 2011.
  11. ↑ "NAS Membership Directory". U.S. National Academy of Sciences . Retrieved September 17, 2011. Search with Robinson as last name.
  12. ↑ "Director Receives Degree in Honor of Hebrew University 90th Celebration". Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. Archived from the original on June 15, 2017. Retrieved January 31, 2015.
  13. ↑ "The 2018 Wolf Prize laureates have been announced". www.wolffund.org.il (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  14. ↑ "IGB Director Awarded 2018 Wolf Prize in Agriculture | Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology". www.igb.illinois.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
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