Barbara J. Meyer

Last updated

Barbara J. Meyer
Born1949
Alma mater
SpouseTom Cline
Scientific career
Institutions
Academic advisors Mark Ptashne, Sydney Brenner
Notable students Anne Villeneuve

Barbara J. Meyer (born 1949) is a biologist and genetist, noted for her pioneering research on lambda phage, a virus that infects bacteria; discovery of the master control gene involved in sex determination; and studies of gene regulation, particularly dosage compensation. [1] Meyer's work has revealed mechanisms of sex determination and dosage compensation—that balance X-chromosome gene expression between the sexes in Caenorhabditis elegans that continue to serve as the foundation of diverse areas of study on chromosome structure and function today. [2]

Contents

Dr. Meyer is an HHMI investigator, a genetics, genomics and development professor at UC Berkeley, and an adjunct professor in the biochemistry and biophysics department at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)'s School of Medicine. Her current research focuses on the molecular networks controlling dynamic chromosome behaviors during cell development which endure genome stability. [3]

Biography

Meyer is a native Californian, born and raised in Stockton. Meyer completed her undergraduate BS at Stanford University, working with David Clayton. She began her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley and completed her graduate studies in 1979 at Harvard University in the lab of Mark Ptashne, working on gene regulation in lambda phage, a bacterial virus which infects bacteria E. coli. In 1979 Meyer began postdoctoral research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, [4] studying how chromosomes determine sex at the laboratory of Sydney Brenner, who later won a Nobel Prize for establishing the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans as an important model organism for research on development. Switching from virus to Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a roundworm, Meyer still studies gene regulation, but turning to sex determination. Meyer discovered the master gene involved in sex determination.

Meyer's early work focused on how C. elegans "counts" the number of X chromosomes and sets of autosomes to determine its sex, as well as how it adjusts to the imbalance in the number of X chromosomes between the two sexes. In C. elegans, individuals with two X chromosomes are self-fertilizing hermaphrodites; those with only one X chromosome are males. A popular hypothesis when Meyer began her postdoctoral work was that the worms compensate for the difference in the number of copies of genes on the X chromosome between the two sexes. But it wasn't clear whether the worms accomplished this by upregulating genes on the X chromosome in males or by downregulating genes on the X chromosome in hermaphrodites. Meyer established her first lab at MIT after leaving the MRC, starting with the question of how the nematode specifies its sex. Further analysis of the mechanism underlying dosage compensation produced many key insights into gene regulation.

In 1990, Meyer and her husband Tom Cline gave up their tenured positions (she at MIT, he at Princeton) -she accepted a full faculty appointment at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1997, Meyer becomes an HHMI investigator. Her lab identified a gene they named xol-1 as the master switch for sex determination. Meyer's group also found that transcription factors encoded by both the X chromosome and the autosomes battle to control whether xol-1 is transcriptionally active or inactive.

She became a member of ASCB (American association of cell biology) in 1995. She was also elected as a member to AAAS (American academy of Arts and Sciences) in 1995. In 2014, Meyer was elected to the American Philosophical Society. [5]

In 2018, Meyer was honored with the E.B. Wilson Medal by American Society for Cell Biology's (ASCB) highest honor for science, for her significant and far-reaching contributions to cell biology over a lifetime in science. Meyer was also honored with 2018 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal which is awarded for lifetime achievement in genetics. This honor is given in recognition of her groundbreaking work on chromosome behaviors that govern gene expression, development, and heredity. At the same year, Meyer was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine, "for groundbreaking work on chromosome dynamics that impact gene expression, development and heredity using the nematode as a model organism. [6]

Notable papers

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex</span> Trait that determines an individuals sexually reproductive function

Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce small mobile gametes, while females produce larger, non-motile ones. Organisms that produce both types of gametes are called hermaphrodites. During sexual reproduction, male and female gametes fuse to form zygotes, which develop into offspring that inherit traits from each parent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XY sex-determination system</span> Method of determining sex

The XY sex-determination system is a sex-determination system used to classify many mammals, including humans, some insects (Drosophila), some snakes, some fish (guppies), and some plants. In this system, the sex of an individual is determined by a pair of sex chromosomes. In most cases, females have two of the same kind of sex chromosome (XX), and are called the homogametic sex. Males have two different kinds of sex chromosomes (XY), and are called the heterogametic sex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex-determination system</span> Biological system that determines the development of organism’s sex

A sex-determination system is a biological system that determines the development of sexual characteristics in an organism. Most organisms that create their offspring using sexual reproduction have two common sexes and a few less common intersex variations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara McClintock</span> American scientist and cytogeneticist (1902–1992)

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<i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i> Free-living species of nematode

Caenorhabditis elegans is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek caeno- (recent), rhabditis (rod-like) and Latin elegans (elegant). In 1900, Maupas initially named it Rhabditides elegans. Osche placed it in the subgenus Caenorhabditis in 1952, and in 1955, Dougherty raised Caenorhabditis to the status of genus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Sulston</span> British biologist and academic (1942–2018)

Sir John Edward Sulston was a British biologist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the cell lineage and genome of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans in 2002 with his colleagues Sydney Brenner and Robert Horvitz at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He was a leader in human genome research and Chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester. Sulston was in favour of science in the public interest, such as free public access of scientific information and against the patenting of genes and the privatisation of genetic technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex-determining region Y protein</span> Protein that initiates male sex determination in therian mammals

Sex-determining region Y protein (SRY), or testis-determining factor (TDF), is a DNA-binding protein encoded by the SRY gene that is responsible for the initiation of male sex determination in therian mammals. SRY is an intronless sex-determining gene on the Y chromosome. Mutations in this gene lead to a range of disorders of sex development with varying effects on an individual's phenotype and genotype.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex-chromosome dosage compensation</span>

Dosage compensation is the process by which organisms equalize the expression of genes between members of different biological sexes. Across species, different sexes are often characterized by different types and numbers of sex chromosomes. In order to neutralize the large difference in gene dosage produced by differing numbers of sex chromosomes among the sexes, various evolutionary branches have acquired various methods to equalize gene expression among the sexes. Because sex chromosomes contain different numbers of genes, different species of organisms have developed different mechanisms to cope with this inequality. Replicating the actual gene is impossible; thus organisms instead equalize the expression from each gene. For example, in humans, female (XX) cells randomly silence the transcription of one X chromosome, and transcribe all information from the other, expressed X chromosome. Thus, human females have the same number of expressed X-linked genes per cell as do human males (XY), both sexes having essentially one X chromosome per cell, from which to transcribe and express genes.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex chromosome</span> Chromosome that differs from an ordinary autosome in form, size, and behavior

A sex chromosome is a chromosome that differs from an ordinary autosome in form, size, and behavior. The human sex chromosomes, a typical pair of mammal allosomes, carry the genes that determine the sex of an individual created in sexual reproduction. Autosomes differ from allosomes because autosomes appear in pairs whose members have the same form but differ from other pairs in a diploid cell, whereas members of an allosome pair may differ from one another and thereby determine sex.

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Mitzi Kuroda is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. She was an HHMI Investigator at Brigham and Women's Hospital from 1993 to 2007. She has identified many genes and enzymes involved in epigenetic regulation in the fruit fly. In addition, her research has shown the importance of epigenetics in cancer. Her laboratory has identified chromatin remodeling signals and processes that predispose cells to be transformed into cancer cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Villeneuve (scientist)</span> American geneticist

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References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Haloupek, Nicole (January 1, 2019). "Barbara J. Meyer: 2018 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal". Genetics. 211 (1): 1–3. doi:10.1534/genetics.118.301883. PMC   6325698 . PMID   30626637.
  2. ↑ Haloupek, Nicole (January 1, 2019). "Barbara J. Meyer: 2018 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal". Genetics. 211 (1): 1–3. doi: 10.1534/genetics.118.301883 . ISSN   0016-6731. PMC   6325698 . PMID   30626637.
  3. ↑ "Barbara J. Meyer". HHMI.org. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  4. ↑ Kathleen, Weston (2020). Ahead of the Curve: Women Scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Cambridge, UK: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. p. 135. ISBN   978-1-903435-05-2.
  5. ↑ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  6. ↑ "National Academy of Medicine elects three faculty members to its ranks". October 17, 2018.
  7. ↑ "Barbara Jean Meyer". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  8. ↑ "New Members and Foreign Associates Elected to the National Academy of Sciences on May 2, 2000", PNAS , v.97, n.10, pp. 5037–5038 (May 9, 2000).
  9. ↑ "Barbara Jean Meyer to be Honored by the American Academy".
  10. ↑ "Genetics Society of America honors Barbara Meyer with 2018 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal". February 2, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Barbara Meyer Honored with the E.B. Wilson Medal". June 22, 2018.
  12. ↑ "National Academy of Medicine Elects 85 New Members". National Academy of Medicine. October 15, 2018. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
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