Caroline Pellew | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1882 |
| Died | 1963 |
| Nationality | British |
Caroline Pellew (born 1882) was a British geneticist who made significant contributions to knowledge of the laws of inheritance in various organisms including peas.
Caroline Pellew | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | 1882 |
| Died | 1963 |
| Nationality | British |
Caroline Pellew (born 1882) was a British geneticist who made significant contributions to knowledge of the laws of inheritance in various organisms including peas.
Pellew was awarded the first minor studentship at the John Innes Centre in 1910. She was a Horticultural Associate of University College Reading and completed a two-year diploma course in horticulture. While at Reading she worked with the botany professor, Frederick Keeble, to investigate the genetics in the chemistry of flower colour.
Pellew conducted much of her significant work on the "rogue" phenomenon in peas with William Bateson and became known as "Professor Bateson's right-hand man", [1] [2] or alternatively his "lieutenant, secretary, mentor and foil". [3] She headed the researchers at Merton after Bateson's death, including fellow female geneticists; Dorothea de Winton, Dorothy Caley, Alice Gairdner, Irma Anderson-Kotto and Aslaug Sverdrup. [4]
By 1929, Pellew had proved her passion for genetics and was given the title of ‘geneticist’ and meticulously worked with peas for over 20 years. [5] [6]
In 1941, Pellew was forced to take "voluntary retirement" due to John Innes experiencing a reduction in income because of the war. [2]
Pellew wrote many papers on Pisum (peas) and Primula (Primrose) and in 1931 published a book called Genetical and Cytological Studies on the Relations Between Asiatic and European Varieties of Pisum Sativum. [7] In 1946, she wrote to J. B. S. Haldane to belatedly congratulate him on his marriage, explaining that her letter was late because she was "sacrificing letter writing to peas." [8]
Mendelian inheritance is a type of biological inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and later popularized by William Bateson. These principles were initially controversial. When Mendel's theories were integrated with the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory of inheritance by Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1915, they became the core of classical genetics. Ronald Fisher combined these ideas with the theory of natural selection in his 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, putting evolution onto a mathematical footing and forming the basis for population genetics within the modern evolutionary synthesis.
The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species Lathyrus oleraceus. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and develop from the ovary of a (pea) flower. The name is also used to describe other edible seeds from the Fabaceae such as the pigeon pea, the cowpea, and the seeds from several species of Lathyrus.
"Experiments on Plant Hybridization" is a seminal paper written in 1865 and published in 1866 by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian friar considered to be the founder of modern genetics. The paper was the result after years spent studying genetic traits in Pisum sativum, the pea plant.
The John Innes Centre (JIC), located in Norwich, Norfolk, England, is an independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science founded in 1910. It is a registered charity grant-aided by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the European Research Council (ERC) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is a member of the Norwich Research Park. In 2017, the John Innes Centre was awarded a gold Athena SWAN Charter award for equality in the workplace.
William Bateson was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns. His 1894 book Materials for the Study of Variation was one of the earliest formulations of the new approach to genetics.
Cyril Dean Darlington was an English biologist, cytologist, geneticist, and eugenicist. He discovered the mechanics of chromosomal crossover, its role in inheritance, and therefore its importance to evolution. He was Sherardian Professor of Botany at the University of Oxford from 1953 to 1971.
The sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, is a flowering plant in the genus Lathyrus in the family Fabaceae (legumes), native to Sicily, southern Italy and the Aegean Islands.
Charles Leonard Huskins was an English-born Canadian geneticist who specialized in the field of cytogenetics. He is also sometimes referred to as C. Leonard Huskins or C.L. Huskins.
Charles Chamberlain Hurst (1870–1947) was an English geneticist.
Oren Harman is a writer and historian of science.
The Bateson Lecture is an annual genetics lecture held as a part of the John Innes Symposium since 1972, in honour of the first Director of the John Innes Centre, William Bateson.
Edavalath Kakkat Janaki Ammal was an Indian botanist who worked on plant breeding, cytogenetics and phytogeography. Her most notable work involved studies on sugarcane and the eggplant (brinjal). She also worked on the cytogenetics of a range of plants and co-authored the Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945) with C.D. Darlington. She took an interest in ethnobotany and plants of medicinal and economic value from the rain forests of Kerala, India. She was awarded Padma Shri by the then prime minister of India in 1977.
Florence Margaret Durham was a British geneticist at Cambridge in the early 1900s and an advocate of the theory of Mendelian inheritance, at a time when it was still controversial. She was part of an informal school of genetics at Cambridge led by her brother-in-law William Bateson. Her work on the heredity of coat colours in mice and canaries helped to support and extend Mendel's law of heredity. It is also one of the first examples of epistasis.
The Darlington Lecture is a lectureship of the John Innes Centre named after its former director, the geneticist C. D. Darlington.
Dorothy Mary Cayley (1874–1955) was a mycologist who discovered in 1927 that "Tulip breaking" is due to a virus.
Dorothea De Winton (1891–1982) was a plant scientist and one of the first female geneticists. She worked at the John Innes Horticultural Institution for over 20 years.
Aslaug Sverdrup Sømme was a Norwegian plant scientist and geneticist.
Hilda Nanette Blanche Praeger Killby (1877-1962) was a British geneticist who investigated heredity in goats and worked with William Bateson and Edith Rebecca Saunders in the early days of the study of genetics.
Alice Elizabeth Gairdner (1873–1954) was a British plant scientist, geneticist and cytologist.