Sarah "Sally" Elgin was born in Washington, D.C. She grew up in Salem, Oregon.[1] In high school, Elgin became fascinated with chemisty and became a finalist in the national Westinghouse Science Talent Search in 1963.[2] She received her B.A. in chemistry from Pomona College in 1967.[3][1] While at Pomona, she participated in a summer research program at the University of Leeds characterizing the egg stalk of the green lacewing fly Chrysopa vittata.[4] Elgin did her graduate work in the lab of James Bonner at the California Institute of Technology, isolating and characterizing nonhistone chromosomal proteins from rat livers and other sources. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1972.[1] Elgin stayed at California Institute of Technology for her postdoctoral research, working in the lab of Leroy Hood. She continued to isolate and characterize nonhistone chromosomal proteins but started using Drosophila as a model system, inspired by the ability to combine biochemistry, cytology, and genetics in flies.
In 1981, Elgin joined the faculty in the Department of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. Her lab identified and characterized Heterochromatin Protein 1 in Drosophila[8] (now known as Su(var)205 or HP1a) and demonstrated that it is essential for heterochromatin formation.[9] To probe chromatin environments, her lab developed a P element construct with a copy of the white gene driven by the hsp70promoter. When this reporter gene is inserted into heterochromatic environments, the fly eyes display a variegating phenotype, whereas when the P element is inserted into euchromatin the fly eyes show a red phenotype; this phenomenon is known as Position-Effect Variegation. Use of this system enabled characterization of unique structural features of heterochromatin.
At Washington University, in the St. Louis area, and nationally, Elgin has been active in science education. She founded the Washington University Science Outreach program (now the Institute for K-12 School Partnership) in 1989 and has been active in science education in the University City school district. She also lobbied for the establishment of the Office of Undergraduate Research at Washington University and promoted the incorporation of research into undergraduate lab courses. In 2006, Elgin was named as the inaugural Viktor Hamburger Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences.
Examining Flies
Genomics Education Partnership
In 2002, Elgin became an HHMI Professor with the goal to develop core curriculum to integrate primary research in genomics into a college lab course called "Research Explorations in Genomics." In June 2005, Elgin held a one-day hands-on introductory workshop at Washington University in St. Louis to show visiting faculty what her students were able to do in genome annotation. The 17 faculty who attended all signed on to a proposal to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to establish the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP). The HHMI grant was funded, and GEP’s first cohort of members attended a full training workshop in June 2006.[10]
Starting from the laboratory course at Washington University, the GEP has engaged students in improving the sequence and gene annotation of different species of Drosophila fruit flies, initially focusing on the F Element, a small chromosome that is largely heterochromatic, but has 80 transcribed genes.[11][12] The GEP has grown into a consortium of over 200 faculty members from colleges and universities, now led by Professor Laura Reed (University of Alabama).[13] GEP students participate in gene annotation projects with the goal of publishing results in primary research journals. GEP faculty also collaborate to publish data on learning experiences for students taking research-intensive classes based on the GEP approach.[11][12][14]
Awards and honors
Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education (American Society for Cell Biology), 2006, shared with A. Malcolm Campbell[15]
Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), 2007[16]
Elizabeth W. Jones Award for Excellence in Education (Genetics Society of America), 2009[17]
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2012[18][1]
↑ Wu, C; Bingham, PM; Livak, KJ; Holmgren, R; Elgin, SCR (April 1979). "The chromatin structure of specific genes: I. Evidence for higher order domains of defined DNA sequence". Cell. 16 (4): 797–806. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(79)90095-3. PMID455449. S2CID10025372.
↑ Wu, C; Wong, YC; Elgin, SCR (April 1979). "The chromatin structure of specific genes: II. Disruption of chromatin structure during gene activity". Cell. 16 (4): 807–814. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(79)90096-5. PMID455450. S2CID25861704.
1 2 Chris Shaffer, Consuelo Alvarez, Cheryl Bailey, Daron Barnard, Satish Bhalla, Chitra Chandrasekaran, Vidya Chandrasekaran, Hui-Min Chung, Doug Dorer, Chunguang Du, Todd Eckdahl, Jeff Poet, Donald Frohlich, Anya Goodman, Yuying Gosser, Charles Hauser, Laura Hoopes, Diana Johnson, Chris Jones, Marian Kaehler, Nighat Kokan, Olga Kopp, Gary Kuleck, Gerry McNeil, Robert Moss, Jennifer Myka, Alexis Nagengast, Robert Morris, Paul Overvoorde, Libby Shoop, Susan Parrish, Kelly Reed, E. Gloria Regisford, Dennis Revie, Anne Rosenwald, Ken Saville, Stephanie Schroeder, Mary Shaw, Christopher Smith, Mary Smith, Eric Spana, Mary Spratt, Joyce Stamm, Jeff Thompson, Matthew Wawersik, Barbara Wilson, Jim Youngblom, Wilson Leung, David Lopatto, Sarah C R Elgin. The Genomics Education Partnership: Successful Integration of Research into Laboratory Classes at a Diverse Group of Undergraduate Institutions, Cell Biology Ed-Life Sci Ed9:35-40 (Spring, 2010).
1 2 Elgin, Sarah C. R.; Hauser, Charles; Holzen, Teresa M.; Jones, Christopher; Kleinschmit, Adam; Leatherman, Judith; Genomics Education Partnership (December 2016). "The GEP: Crowd-Sourcing Big Data Analysis with Undergraduates". Trends in Genetics. 33 (2): 81–85. doi:10.1016/j.tig.2016.11.004. ISSN0168-9525. PMID27939750.
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