Rosemary Carpenter | |
---|---|
Alma mater | University of East Anglia |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | John Innes Centre |
Thesis | Studies on genetic instability in Antirrhinum majus (1998) |
Rosemary Carpenter is a British plant geneticist known for her work on members of the genus Antirrhinum , commonly known as a snapdragon, for which she and Enrico Coen were awarded the 2004 Darwin Medal by the Royal Society. [1]
Starting in the 1960, Carpenter worked with Brian Harrison at the John Innes Centre on unstable mutants of the snapdragon Antirrhinum. [2] After meeting Carpenter during an interview at the John Innes Centre in 1983, Enrico Coen joined the center and they began a long collaboration with him using snapdragons as a model system to understand jumping genes and evolution. [3] [2] They applied a combination of molecular, genetic and morphological approaches to snapdragons with the goal of elucidating patterns in flower development [4] using the hundreds of Antirrhihum mutants established by Carpenter. [5] Carpenter retired in 2003. [6]
Carpenter is a plant geneticist known for her research on the population genetics of the snapdragon, Antirrhihum. [7] [2] Working with Brian Harrison in the 1970s, she defined genetic instabilities in Antirrhinum and the role of temperature in controlling the rate of instability of specific genes [8] [9] and transposable elements that occur in both maize and snapdragons. [10] This was the first time a link between genetic instability and Antirrhihum was formalized, a milestone in research using snapdragons. [11] The instability of genes in snapdragons begin Carpenter's collaboration with Enrico Coen, where they first worked on transposons and the effect of temperature on the excision of specific genes [12] and how the transposable elements cause variability in gene expression. [13] [14] Carpenter, Coen, and their students isolated the genes controlling floral development. [15] [16] [17] These genetic investigations allowed them to define the patterns of color, [18] [19] shape, [20] [21] [22] and floral asymmetry [23] [24] in snapdragons and other plants. Carpenter's research on snapdragons includes investigations of how snapdragons select their colors using small RNA, [25] which alter the selection of colors in the snapdragons. [26]