Chris R. Somerville

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Christopher Roland Somerville is a Canadian-American biologist known as a pioneer of Arabidopsis thaliana research. Somerville is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and a Program Officer at the Open Philanthropy Project.

Contents

Life and career

Somerville majored in Mathematics and completed a PhD in Genetics at the University of Alberta, and then did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of William Ogren before serving as a faculty member at U. Alberta and Michigan State University. [1] [2] He directed the Department of Plant Science at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University and then the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. He retired from the UC Berkeley faculty in 2017. [3]

Somerville was co-founder and Executive Chairman of Mendel Biotechnology, Inc. and a co-founder of Poetic Genetics, LS9, Inc, and Redleaf Biologics. [4] Somerville has contributed to societal debates on the value of transgenic crops [5] and biofuels.

Together with Elliot Meyerowitz, Somerville was awarded the Balzan Prize in 2006 for his work developing the small mustard plant A. thaliana as a model. [6] [1] [7] [8] His interest in this plant was partly stimulated by a review article [9] written by George Rédei. [10] [2] [11]

Many trainees from Somerville's lab have started independent labs, including Mark Estelle, Peter McCourt, George W. Haughn, John W. Schiefelbein, Christoph Benning, Clint Chapple, Wolf-Dieter Reiter, John Browse, Sean Cutler, Dominique Bergmann, Seung Y. Rhee, Staffan Persson, Wolfgang Lukowitz, and C. Stewart Gillmor.

Research highlights

Selected publications

Review articles

Interviews and historical pieces

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 "Christopher Somerville". Balzan Prizewinner Biography. October 11, 1947. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Somerville, Chris R. (2001-01-01). "An Early Arabidopsis Demonstration. Resolving a Few Issues Concerning Photorespiration". Plant Physiology. 125 (1): 20–24. doi:10.1104/pp.125.1.20. PMC   1539316 . PMID   11154287.
  3. "College of Natural Resources Faculty Retirements". UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources. Retrieved 2017-12-19.
  4. "About – RedLeaf Biologics" . Retrieved 2021-07-05.
  5. Somerville, Chris (2000-08-01). "The Genetically Modified Organism Conflict". Plant Physiology. 123 (4): 1201–1202. doi:10.1104/pp.123.4.1201. ISSN   0032-0889. PMC   1539266 . PMID   10938338.
  6. "Elliot Meyerowitz Christopher Somerville - Balzan Prize Plant Molecular Genetics". Milano Zurigo. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  7. Studies, D.E.L.; Medicine, I.; Resources, B.A.N.; Sciences, B.L.; Health, C.E.M.T.; Oaks, S.C.; Shope, R.E.; Lederberg, J. (2002). The National Plant Genome Initiative: Objectives for 2003-2008. National Academies Press. p. 63. ISBN   978-0-309-16879-3 . Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  8. (U.S.), National Science Foundation (1991). Mosaic. The Foundation. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  9. Redei, G P (1975-12-01). "Arabidopsis as a genetic tool". Annual Review of Genetics. 9 (1): 111–127. doi:10.1146/annurev.ge.09.120175.000551. PMID   1108762.
  10. Pennisi, Elizabeth (2000-10-06). "Arabidopsis comes of age". Science. 290 (5489): 32–35. doi:10.1126/science.290.5489.32. PMID   11183143. S2CID   82370817.
  11. Potter, Erik (2014). "From apathy to apogee". MIZZOU Magazine. Retrieved 2014-08-22.
  12. Arondel, V.; Lemieux, B.; Hwang, I.; Gibson, S.; Goodman, H. M.; Somerville, C. R. (1992-11-20). "Map-based cloning of a gene controlling omega-3 fatty acid desaturation in Arabidopsis". Science. 258 (5086): 1353–1355. Bibcode:1992Sci...258.1353A. doi:10.1126/science.1455229. PMID   1455229.