Terry Orr-Weaver

Last updated
Terry Orr-Weaver
Alma mater Harvard University
Known foridentification of genes for chromosome separation
Awards2006 Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology
2006 National Academy of Sciences
2010 Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science
2013 FASEB Excellence in Science Award
2018 Flexner Discovery Lecturer at Vanderbilt University
Scientific career
Fields genetics, developmental biology, cell biology
Institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Whitehead Institute
Thesis  (1984)
Doctoral advisor Jack Szostak

Terry L. Orr-Weaver is an American molecular biologist in the MIT Department of Biology with a joint appointment to the Whitehead Institute. She does research on developmental biology, with a focus on "[c]oordination of cell growth and division with development, with particular focus on the oocyte-to-embryo transition, control of cell size, and regulation of metazoan DNA replication." [1] Orr-Weaver and her collaborators have identified two proteins necessary for the proper sorting of chromosomes during meiosis with implications for cancer and birth defects. [2] In 2006 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. [2]

Contents

Education

Terry Orr-Weaver received her PhD in biological chemistry in 1984 from Harvard University. [2] She was the first graduate student advised by Nobel laureate Jack Szostak in his career, and he discussed her research in his Nobel biography. [3]

Academic and research career

Orr-Weaver was a faculty member at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also at the Whitehead Institute, both of which she joined in 1987. [2] She became a Searle Scholar in 1988. [4] She was appointed an American Cancer Society Research Professor at MIT in 2008. [5] She served as the President of the Genetics Society of America in 2005, [6] and President of the National Drosophila Board in 2008. [5] In 2013 she received the FASEB Excellence in Science Award. [2]

Orr-Weaver's research concerns the cell cycle and delves into both normal and abnormal aspects of cell division regulation in such diseases as cancer and certain birth defects. She and her collaborators have particularly elucidated the way the cell cycle is coordinated with development. [2] They have shown that cortex protein specifically triggers the anaphase-promoting complex in ovaries and the degradation of cortex protein following egg-activation is strictly controlled. [7] They have also established that Inducer of Meiosis 4 (IME4) is required for an important step, Notch signaling, to occur in fruit fly ovaries. [8]

She is the co-author, with Harvey Lodish, of the book Model Organisms: Drosophila, published in 1997 by Academic Press. [9]

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

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In cell biology, mitosis is a part of the cell cycle in which replicated chromosomes are separated into two new nuclei. Cell division by mitosis gives rise to genetically identical cells in which the total number of chromosomes is maintained. Therefore, mitosis is also known as equational division. In general, mitosis is preceded by S phase of interphase and is often followed by telophase and cytokinesis; which divides the cytoplasm, organelles and cell membrane of one cell into two new cells containing roughly equal shares of these cellular components. The different stages of mitosis altogether define the mitotic (M) phase of an animal cell cycle—the division of the mother cell into two daughter cells genetically identical to each other.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Baltimore</span> American biologist (born 1938)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homologous chromosome</span> Chromosomes that pair in fertilization

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitehead Institute</span> Non-profit biomedical research institute

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally independent entity from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where its 18 members all hold faculty appointments in the MIT Department of Biology or the MIT Department of Bioengineering. Two members are National Medal of Science recipients; ten have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences; and four have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine; six are Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators.

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Harvey Franklin Lodish is a molecular and cell biologist, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and lead author of the textbook Molecular Cell Biology. Lodish's research focused on cell surface proteins and other important areas at the interface between molecular cell biology and medicine.

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The meiotic recombination checkpoint monitors meiotic recombination during meiosis, and blocks the entry into metaphase I if recombination is not efficiently processed.

Gerald Ralph Fink is an American biologist, who was Director of the Whitehead Institute at MIT from 1990–2001. He graduated from Amherst College in 1962 and received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1965, having elucidated the histidine pathway in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. After postdoctoral study at the National Institutes of Health with Bruce Ames on the regulation of the histidine operon of Salmonella, in 1967 he joined Cornell University where he became a Professor of Genetics and pursued the study of the HIS4 region of yeast. In 1982 he became a founding member of the Whitehead Institute and Professor of Genetics at MIT. Dr. Fink was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1981, to the Institute of Medicine in 1996, and to the American Philosophical Society in 2003.

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References

  1. "Terry Orr-Weaver | MIT Biology". biology.mit.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Whitehead Institute - Faculty - Terry L. Orr-Weaver". wi.mit.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
  3. "Nobel Prize Physiology Medicine 2009". Nobel Prize. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  4. "Searle Scholars Program : Terry L. Orr-Weaver (1988)". www.searlescholars.net. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
  5. 1 2 3 "University of Montreal IRIC Board of Directors". Institute for Research into Immunology and Cancer. Retrieved Aug 14, 2018.
  6. "Genetics Society of America past officers". Genetics Society of America. Retrieved Aug 14, 2018.
  7. Jillin A Pesin and Terry Orr-Weaver (2007) "Developmental role and regulation of cortex, a meiosis-specific anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome activator." PLOS Genetics3 (11):e202. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0030202
  8. Cintia F Hongay and Terry Orr-Weaver (2011) "Drosophila Inducer of Meiosis 4 (IME4) is required for Notch signalling during oogenesis." Proc Natl Acad Sci USA108 (36):14855–14860.
  9. "Goodreads" . Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  10. "Past and Present GSA Officers". GSA. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  11. "Events at Vanderbilt University". Events Vanderbilt University. Retrieved August 14, 2018.