Beth Shapiro

Last updated
Beth Shapiro
Beth Shapiro - PopTech 2010 - Camden, Maine (5103086839) (cropped).jpg
Shapiro in 2010
Born
Beth Alison Shapiro

(1976-01-14) January 14, 1976 (age 48)
Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Alma mater
Known for How to Clone a Mammoth [1]
Awards
Rhodes Scholarship
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Thesis Inferring evolutionary history and processes using ancient DNA  (2003)
Doctoral advisor Alan J. Cooper [4]
Website pgl.soe.ucsc.edu

Beth Alison Shapiro (born January 14, 1976 [5] ) is an American evolutionary molecular biologist, associate director for conservation genomics at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. [6] [7] In March 2024, Shapiro became chief scientific officer of Colossal Biosciences. [7] She also taught in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. [7]

Contents

Shapiro's work has centered on the analysis of ancient DNA. [8] [3] She was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2006 [2] and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009. [5] [9]

Early life and education

Shapiro was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on January 14, 1976. [10] [11] She grew up in Rome, Georgia, where she served as a local news presenter while attending Rome High School. [12]

She graduated from Rome High School with a GPA of 4.0, and entered the University of Georgia in 1994. [13] She studied Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English literature, and geology prior to choosing ecology as her major. [11] She graduated summa cum laude in 1999 with BA and MA degrees in ecology. [11] [5] The same year, she was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship [12] followed by a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford for research on inferring evolutionary history and processes using ancient DNA supervised by Alan J. Cooper. [4]

Career

In 2004, Shapiro was appointed a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Oxford [14] and director of the Henry Wellcome Biomolecules Centre at Oxford, a position she held until 2007. In 2006, she was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. [2] While at the Biomolecules Centre, Shapiro carried out mitochondrial DNA analysis of the dodo. [15] [16]

Shapiro's research on ecology has been published in journals [3] including Molecular Biology and Evolution , [17] PLOS Biology , [18] Science , [15] [19] [20] and Nature . [21] [22] [23] In 2007, she was named by Smithsonian magazine as one of 37 young American innovators under the age of 36. [24]

In 2024, Shapiro was appointed as chief science officer of Colossal Biosciences to help the company meet its de-extinction and species preservation goals. [25] In the same year, Shapiro has received backlash and has become a target of fan activism and trolling from fans of the Jurassic Park media franchise due to her explanation for why dinosaur de-extinction is impossible, or at least not possible in the way it is commonly depicted in science-fiction. [26] [27]

Publications

Her peer reviewed publications in scientific journals [3] and books include:

Honors and awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bison</span> Genus of mammals

A bison is a large bovine in the genus Bison within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beringia</span> Geographical region of Asia and North America currently partly submerged

Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi and Kamchatka Peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States and the Yukon in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steppe bison</span> Extinct species of mammal

The steppe bison or steppe wisent is an extinct species of bison. It was widely distributed across the mammoth steppe, ranging from Western Europe to eastern Beringia in North America during the Late Pleistocene. It is ancestral to all North American bison, including ultimately modern American bison. Three chronological subspecies, Bison priscus priscus, Bison priscus mediator, and Bison priscus gigas, have been suggested.

<i>Camelops</i> Extinct genus of mammals

Camelops is an extinct genus of camel that lived in North and Central America, ranging from Alaska to Honduras, from the middle Pliocene to the end of the Pleistocene. It is more closely related to living camels than to lamines, making it a true camel of the Camelini tribe. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek κάμηλος and ὄψ, i.e. "camel-face".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient DNA</span> Method of archaeological study

Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient sources. Due to degradation processes ancient DNA is more degraded in comparison with contemporary genetic material. Genetic material has been recovered from paleo/archaeological and historical skeletal material, mummified tissues, archival collections of non-frozen medical specimens, preserved plant remains, ice and from permafrost cores, marine and lake sediments and excavation dirt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wild horse</span> Undomesticated four-footed mammal from the equine family

The wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes as subspecies the modern domesticated horse as well as the endangered Przewalski's horse. The European wild horse, also known as the tarpan, that went extinct in the late 19th or early 20th century has previously been treated as the nominate subspecies of wild horse, Equus ferus ferus, but more recent studies have cast doubt on whether tarpans were truly wild or if they actually were feral horses or hybrids.

<i>Bison latifrons</i> Extinct species of mammal

Bison latifrons, also known as the giant bison or long-horned bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Late Pleistocene epoch ranging from southern Canada to Mexico. It is noted for large body size and its distinctive long horns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toxodontidae</span> Extinct family of notoungulate mammals

Toxodontidae is an extinct family of notoungulate mammals, known from the Oligocene to the Holocene of South America, with one genus, Mixotoxodon, also known from the Pleistocene of Central America and southern North America. Member of the family were medium to large-sized, ranging from around 350–400 kilograms (770–880 lb) in Nesodon to 1,000–1,200 kilograms (2,200–2,600 lb) in Toxodon, and had medium to high-crowned dentition, which in derived members of the group evolved into ever-growing cheek teeth. Isotopic analyses have led to the conclusion that Pleistocene members of the family were flexible mixed feeders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolly mammoth</span> Extinct elephant-like species

The woolly mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in Siberia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The Columbian mammoth lived alongside the woolly mammoth in North America, and DNA studies show that the two hybridised with each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eske Willerslev</span> Danish evolutionary geneticist

Eske Willerslev is a Danish evolutionary geneticist notable for his pioneering work in molecular anthropology, palaeontology, and ecology. He currently holds the Prince Philip Professorship in Ecology and Evolution at University of Cambridge, UK and the Lundbeck Foundation Professorship in Evolution at Copenhagen University, Denmark. He is director of the Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics, a research associate at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and a professorial fellow at St John's College, Cambridge. Willerslev is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (US) and holds the Order of the Dannebrog issued by her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 2017.

The Centre for Geogenetics is a Danish Basic Research Centre of Excellence (Grundforskningscenter) which officially opened in September 2010. It is located at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen and financed by the Danish National Research Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">De-extinction</span> Process of re-creating an extinct species

De-extinction is the process of generating an organism that either resembles or is an extinct species. There are several ways to carry out the process of de-extinction. Cloning is the most widely proposed method, although genome editing and selective breeding have also been considered. Similar techniques have been applied to certain endangered species, in hopes to boost their genetic diversity. The only method of the three that would provide an animal with the same genetic identity is cloning. There are benefits and drawbacks to the process of de-extinction ranging from technological advancements to ethical issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beringian wolf</span> Extinct type of wolf that lived during the Ice Age in Alaska, Yukon, and northern British Columbia

The Beringian wolf is an extinct population of wolf that lived during the Ice Age. It inhabited what is now modern-day Alaska, Yukon, and northern British Columbia. Some of these wolves survived well into the Holocene. The Beringian wolf is an ecomorph of the gray wolf and has been comprehensively studied using a range of scientific techniques, yielding new information on their prey species and feeding behaviors. It has been determined that these wolves are morphologically distinct from modern North American wolves and genetically basal to most modern and extinct wolves. The Beringian wolf has not been assigned a subspecies classification and its relationship with the extinct European cave wolf is not clear.

Alan Cooper is a New Zealand evolutionary biologist and an ancient DNA researcher. He was involved in several important early ancient DNA studies, such as the first sequencing of moa genomes. He was the inaugural director of both the Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre at the University of Oxford from 2001–2005, and the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, South Australia from 2005–2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pleistocene wolf</span> Extinct lineage of the grey wolf

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Druckenmiller</span> American paleontologist

Patrick Scott Druckenmiller is a Mesozoic paleontologist, taxonomist, associate professor of geology, Earth Sciences curator, and museum director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North, where he oversees the largest single collection of Alaskan invertebrate and vertebrate fossils. He has published work on plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mastodons, and dinosaurs in the United States, Svalbard, and Canada. He has co-authored papers on discussions of mass extinctions and biogeography. Much of his work has focused on Arctic species. He is a member of the Spitsbergen Jurassic Research group, which focuses on marine reptiles.

Dogor is a preserved canine specimen that was found in the Siberian permafrost of Sakha in 2018. It is a remarkably well preserved two-month-old male puppy with fur and whiskers remaining. The animal has been determined to be 18,000 years old. At first, DNA sequencing was unable to identify the animal as either a dog or a wolf. Anders Bergström, a postdoctoral fellow in ancient genomics at the Francis Crick Institute in London, identified Dogor as an ancient wolf as reported in a research study on June 29, 2022 in Nature magazine. However, the specimen did not belong to the ancient east Eurasian progenitor population of wolves from which dogs are thought to have evolved, suggesting perhaps a dual ancestry for dogs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David J. Meltzer</span>

David Jeffrey Meltzer is an American archaeologist known for his influential studies of Paleo-Indians and Pleistocene mammalian extinction in the Americas. He is currently Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory at Southern Methodist University and Affiliate Professor at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

Ian Barnes is an evolutionary geneticist notable for his work on ancient DNA, human and animal migration, and phylogenetics. Barnes is a Research Leader in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum in London.

References

  1. 1 2 Shapiro, Beth (2015). How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN   9780691157054.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Anon (2006). "Dr Beth Shapiro, Research Fellow". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2017-03-01.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Beth Shapiro publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  4. 1 2 Shapiro, Beth Alison (2003). Inferring evolutionary history and processes using ancient DNA. bodleian.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). Oxford: University of Oxford. OCLC   56923402.[ permanent dead link ]
  5. 1 2 3 4 Anon (2011). "2009 MacArthur Fellows: Beth Shapiro". macfound.org. MacArthur Foundation. Archived from the original on 2016-03-07. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  6. ↑ "Beth Shapiro, DPhil | Investigator Profile | 2018-Present". www.hhmi.org. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Ancient DNA expert Beth Shapiro named CSO of Colossal". UC Santa Cruz.
  8. ↑ Ancient DNA -- What It Is and What It Could Be: Beth Shapiro at TEDxDeExtinction on YouTube TEDx talk
  9. ↑ Shapiro, Beth (2012). "Beth Shapiro Curriculum Vitae at Penn State University" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-14.
  10. ↑ Beattie-Moss, Melissa. "Evolution of a Scientist: An Interview with Beth Shapiro". Research Penn State. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  11. 1 2 3 Contemporary Biographies in Environment & Conservation. Salem Press. 2014. pp. 117–118. ISBN   978-1-61925-539-5.
  12. 1 2 Williams, Phil; Hannon, Sharron. "The Rhodes to Oxford: Ecology student, Foundation Fellow Beth Shapiro becomes UGA's third Rhodes Scholar in four years". University of Georgia. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  13. ↑ Brice, Plott (21 December 1998). "Rhodes scholar from UGA awed by what awaits". The Atlanta Constitution. p. 23.
  14. ↑ "'Beth Shapiro page on the MacArthur Foundation website".
  15. 1 2 3 Shapiro, Beth; Sibthorpe, Dean; Rambaut, Andrew; Austin, Jeremy; Wragg, Graham M.; Bininda-Emonds, Olaf R.P.; Lee, Patricia L.M.; Cooper, Alan (2002). "Flight of the Dodo". Science. 295 (5560): 1683. doi:10.1126/science.295.5560.1683. PMID   11872833.(subscription required)
  16. ↑ Curry, Andrew. "How to Make a Dodo: Biologist Beth Shapiro has figured out a recipe for success in the field of ancient DNA research". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 14 October 2009. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  17. 1 2 Drummond, A. J.; Rambaut, A; Shapiro, B.; Pybus, O. G. (2005). "Bayesian Coalescent Inference of Past Population Dynamics from Molecular Sequences". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 22 (5): 1185–1192. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msi103 . ISSN   0737-4038. PMID   15703244.
  18. ↑ Penny, David; Bunce, Michael; Szulkin, Marta; Lerner, Heather R L; Barnes, Ian; Shapiro, Beth; Cooper, Alan; Holdaway, Richard N (2005). "Ancient DNA Provides New Insights into the Evolutionary History of New Zealand's Extinct Giant Eagle". PLOS Biology. 3 (1): e9. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030009 . ISSN   1545-7885. PMC   539324 . PMID   15660162. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  19. ↑ Poinar, H. N. (2006). "Metagenomics to Paleogenomics: Large-Scale Sequencing of Mammoth DNA". Science. 311 (5759): 392–394. Bibcode:2006Sci...311..392P. doi:10.1126/science.1123360. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   16368896. S2CID   11238470.(subscription required)
  20. 1 2 Shapiro, B. (2004). "Rise and Fall of the Beringian Steppe Bison". Science. 306 (5701): 1561–1565. Bibcode:2004Sci...306.1561S. doi:10.1126/science.1101074. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   15567864. S2CID   27134675.(subscription required)
  21. ↑ Lorenzen, Eline D.; Nogués-Bravo, David; Orlando, Ludovic; Weinstock, Jaco; Binladen, Jonas; Marske, Katharine A.; Ugan, Andrew; Borregaard, Michael K.; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Nielsen, Rasmus; Ho, Simon Y. W.; Goebel, Ted; Graf, Kelly E.; Byers, David; Stenderup, Jesper T.; Rasmussen, Morten; Campos, Paula F.; Leonard, Jennifer A.; Koepfli, Klaus-Peter; Froese, Duane; Zazula, Grant; Stafford, Thomas W.; Aaris-Sørensen, Kim; Batra, Persaram; Haywood, Alan M.; Singarayer, Joy S.; Valdes, Paul J.; Boeskorov, Gennady; Burns, James A.; Davydov, Sergey P.; Haile, James; Jenkins, Dennis L.; Kosintsev, Pavel; Kuznetsova, Tatyana; Lai, Xulong; Martin, Larry D.; McDonald, H. Gregory; Mol, Dick; Meldgaard, Morten; Munch, Kasper; Stephan, Elisabeth; Sablin, Mikhail; Sommer, Robert S.; Sipko, Taras; Scott, Eric; Suchard, Marc A.; Tikhonov, Alexei; Willerslev, Rane; Wayne, Robert K.; Cooper, Alan; Hofreiter, Michael; Sher, Andrei; Shapiro, Beth; Rahbek, Carsten; Willerslev, Eske (2011). "Species-specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans". Nature. 479 (7373): 359–364. Bibcode:2011Natur.479..359L. doi:10.1038/nature10574. ISSN   0028-0836. PMC   4070744 . PMID   22048313.(subscription required)
  22. ↑ Orlando, Ludovic; Ginolhac, Aurélien; Zhang, Guojie; Froese, Duane; Albrechtsen, Anders; Stiller, Mathias; Schubert, Mikkel; Cappellini, Enrico; Petersen, Bent; Moltke, Ida; Johnson, Philip L. F.; Fumagalli, Matteo; Vilstrup, Julia T.; Raghavan, Maanasa; Korneliussen, Thorfinn; Malaspinas, Anna-Sapfo; Vogt, Josef; Szklarczyk, Damian; Kelstrup, Christian D.; Vinther, Jakob; Dolocan, Andrei; Stenderup, Jesper; Velazquez, Amhed M. V.; Cahill, James; Rasmussen, Morten; Wang, Xiaoli; Min, Jiumeng; Zazula, Grant D.; Seguin-Orlando, Andaine; Mortensen, Cecilie; Magnussen, Kim; Thompson, John F.; Weinstock, Jacobo; Gregersen, Kristian; Røed, Knut H.; Eisenmann, Véra; Rubin, Carl J.; Miller, Donald C.; Antczak, Douglas F.; Bertelsen, Mads F.; Brunak, Søren; Al-Rasheid, Khaled A. S.; Ryder, Oliver; Andersson, Leif; Mundy, John; Krogh, Anders; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Kjær, Kurt; Sicheritz-Ponten, Thomas; Jensen, Lars Juhl; Olsen, Jesper V.; Hofreiter, Michael; Nielsen, Rasmus; Shapiro, Beth; Wang, Jun; Willerslev, Eske (2013). "Recalibrating Equus evolution using the genome sequence of an early Middle Pleistocene horse". Nature. 499 (7456): 74–78. Bibcode:2013Natur.499...74O. doi:10.1038/nature12323. ISSN   0028-0836. PMID   23803765. S2CID   4318227.(subscription required)
  23. ↑ Higham, Tom; Compton, Tim; Stringer, Chris; Jacobi, Roger; Shapiro, Beth; Trinkaus, Erik; Chandler, Barry; Gröning, Flora; Collins, Chris; Hillson, Simon; O’Higgins, Paul; FitzGerald, Charles; Fagan, Michael (2011). "The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans in northwestern Europe". Nature. 479 (7374): 521–524. Bibcode:2011Natur.479..521H. doi:10.1038/nature10484. ISSN   0028-0836. PMID   22048314. S2CID   4374023.(subscription required)
  24. ↑ "37 under 36: America's Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences". smithsonianmag.com. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11.
  25. ↑ Laura Lorek (March 19, 2024). "Colossal Hires Ancient DNA Expert Beth Shapiro as Chief Science Officer". Silicon Hills News.
  26. ↑ Shuyi, Lee (2024-09-11). "Dinosaurs' return deemed impossible by scientist". Thaiger World. Retrieved 2024-09-26.
  27. ↑ Me, the social media manager, when people get mad at Dr. Beth Shapiro in the comments . Retrieved 2024-09-26– via www.youtube.com.
  28. ↑ Shapiro, Beth (2023). Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined--and Redefined--Nature. Oneworld Publications. ISBN   9781541644182.
  29. ↑ Shapiro, Beth; Hofreiter, Michael, eds. (2012). Ancient DNA: Methods and Protocols. New York: Humana Press. ISBN   978-1-61779-515-2.
  30. ↑ Zazula, Grant D.; MacKay, Glen; Andrews, Thomas D.; Shapiro, Beth; Letts, Brandon; Broc, Fiona (2009). "A late Pleistocene steppe bison (Bison priscus) partial carcass from Tsiigehtchic, Northwest Territories, Canada" (PDF). Quaternary Science Reviews . 28 (25–26): 2734–2742. Bibcode:2009QSRv...28.2734Z. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.06.012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-14. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
  31. ↑ Stephens, Tim (19 April 2023). "Biologist Beth Shapiro elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences". University of California Santa Cruz.
  32. ↑ "Beth Shapiro selected as National Geographic Emerging Explorer". Penn State Live. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  33. ↑ "Beth A. Shapiro (BS '99, MS '99) receives Young Alumnus Award". Odom School of Ecology, The University of Georgia. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  34. 1 2 "Shapiro Receives MacArthur Fellow Award". Penn State. September 21, 2009.
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