Margaret Byrne

Last updated

Margaret Mary Byrne
Born1960 [1]
NationalityAustralian
Alma mater The University of Western Australia
Scientific career
Thesis Genetic diversity in Isotoma petraea and Macrozamia riedlei.

Margaret Mary Byrne is senior principal research scientist and director of the Science Division within WA Dept of Parks and Wildlife. [2] She is a member of the Board of Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). Her research background is in population genetics and conservation genetics, with applications to choosing provenances for restoration as well as to understanding phylogeographic history. She has been a longstanding treasurer of Genetics Society of Australia, a society relevant to NCEEC.

Contents

Education and early career

Byrne completed her Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours at The University of Western Australia, in 1986, completing her Honours thesis on Molecular Biological Techniques for the Study of Plant Genetic Systems. She went on to complete her doctorate at the same university in 1991, on Genetic diversity in Isotoma petraea and Macrozamia riedlei. After completing her doctorate, she went on to work as a researcher with the CSIRO Division of Forestry, where she undertook genetic mapping and quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis in eucalypts.

Work in conservation

In 1996 she returned to Perth to establish a molecular genetics laboratory in the then Department of Conservation and Land Management. Her research has focussed on plant genetic research to inform conservation strategies for rare and threatened plants, as well as biodiversity conservation at community and landscape scales in relation to remnant viability and revegetation.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary F. Lyon</span> English geneticist (1925–2014)

Mary Frances Lyon was an English geneticist best known for her discovery of X-chromosome inactivation, an important biological phenomenon.

Deborah Charlesworth is a population geneticist from the UK, notable for her important discoveries in population genetics and evolutionary biology. Her most notable research is in understanding the evolution of recombination, sex chromosomes and mating system for plants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Sager</span> American geneticist

Ruth Sager was an American geneticist. In the 1950s and 1960s she pioneered the field of cytoplasmic genetics by discovering transmission of genetic traits through chloroplast DNA, the first known example of genetics not involving the cell nucleus. The academic community did not acknowledge the significance of her contribution until after the second wave of feminism in the 1970s. Her second career began in the early 1970s and was in cancer genetics; she proposed and investigated the roles of tumor suppressor genes.

Sir Otto Herzberg Frankel FRS FAA FRSNZ was an Austrian-born New Zealand and Australian geneticist. In the 1960s and 1970s he was among the first to warn of the dangers of plant biodiversity loss.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary-Claire King</span> American geneticist

Mary-Claire King is an American geneticist. She was the first to show that breast cancer can be inherited due to mutations in the gene she called BRCA1. She studies human genetics and is particularly interested in genetic heterogeneity and complex traits. She studies the interaction of genetics and environmental influences and their effects on human conditions such as breast and ovarian cancer, inherited deafness, schizophrenia, HIV, systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. She has been the American Cancer Society Professor of the Department of Genome Sciences and of Medical Genetics in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington since 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorna Casselton</span> British geneticist, academic and educator

Lorna Ann Casselton, was a British academic and biologist. She was Professor Emeritus of Fungal Genetics in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Oxford, and was known for her genetic and molecular analysis of the mushroom Coprinus cinereus and Coprinus lagopus.

Mary Styles Harris is an American biologist and geneticist, president of Harris & Associates in Atlanta, Georgia, and owner of BioTechnical Communications, which produced the television documentary "To My Sister...A Gift for Life."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottoline Leyser</span> English botanist (born 1965)

Dame Henrietta Miriam Ottoline Leyser is a British plant biologist and Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge who is on secondment as CEO of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). From 2013 to 2020 she was the director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge.

Jennifer Ann Marshall Graves is an Australian geneticist. She is Distinguished Professor within the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University, Australia and Professor Emeritus of the Australian National University.

Patricia Verne Kailis was an Australian business woman, geneticist and neurologist noted for her work in genetic counseling for neurological and neuromuscular disorders.

Katherine Wilson is a molecular biologist and a marine scientist. She is also the executive director of the science division at the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), New South Wales. Wilson is responsible for the delivery of OEH's science program, which provides technical analysis, expert advice and research to support the NSW government's policy and program objectives in environmental management. As a member of the OEH Executive, Wilson guides delivery of services ranging from energy efficiency programs to management of national parks. Wilson is also a Board Member of the Low Carbon Living Cooperative Research Centre and Chair of the External Advisory Committee, Australian Rivers and Wetlands Centre, University of New South Wales.

Pamela Soltis is an American botanist. She is a distinguished professor at the University of Florida, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, principal investigator of the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolutionary Genetics at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and founding director of the University of Florida Biodiversity Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Belov</span> Australian geneticist

Katherine Belov is an Australian geneticist, professor of comparative genomics in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences and Pro Vice Chancellor of Global Engagement at the University of Sydney. She is head of the Australasian Wildlife Genomics Group and research expert in the area of comparative genomics and immunogenetics, including Tasmanian devils and koalas, two iconic Australian species that are threatened by disease processes. Throughout her career, she has disproved the idea that marsupial immune system is primitive, characterized the South American gray short-tailed opossum's immune genes, participated in the Platypus Genome Project, led research identifying the properties of platypus venom, and identified the cause of the spread of the Tasmanian devil's contagious cancer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meena Upadhyaya</span> Indian-born Welsh medical geneticist

Meena Upadhyaya OBE, FRCPath, FLSW is an Indian-born Welsh medical geneticist and a Professor emerita at Cardiff University. Her research has focused on the genes that cause various genetic disorders, in particular neurofibromatosis type I and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Blackwood</span> Australian botanist and geneticist

Dame Margaret Blackwood was an Australian botanist and geneticist. She attended the University of Melbourne and lectured there for the majority of her career, becoming deputy chancellor after her academic retirement. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1981 and was inducted posthumously into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001.

Jenefer Blackwell is a Professor of Molecular Parasitology at the Telethon Kids Institute in the University of Western Australia. She studies host susceptibility and resistance to infectious diseases.

Margaret M. Perry (1930-2009) was an English molecular geneticist and embryology researcher at the University of Edinburgh whose research produced the first warm-blooded animal developed completely in vitro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant Robert Sutherland</span> Australian geneticist (born 1945)

Grant Robert Sutherland is a retired Australian human geneticist and celebrated cytogeneticist. He was the Director, Department of Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics, Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital for 27 years (1975-2002), then became the Foundation Research Fellow there until 2007. He is an Emeritus Professor in the Departments of Paediatrics and Genetics at the University of Adelaide.

Lyn Robyn Griffiths is an Australian academic who serves as Distinguished Professor of molecular genetics at Queensland University of Technology, where she is director of the Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health, the Genomics Research Centre and the BridgeTech Programs. Griffiths is internationally renowned for her work in the discovery of the genetics of migraine headaches.

Jane Melville is an Australian herpetologist at Museums Victoria. Her research focuses on the taxonomy and genetics of reptiles and amphibians.

References

  1. "Byrne, Margaret Mary - Biographical entry". Encyclopedia of Australian Science. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  2. "Margaret Byrne". science.dpaw.wa.gov.au/people/?sid=12.