Lorna Casselton | |
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.jpg) Casselton in 2010. | |
| Born | Lorna Ann Smith 18 July 1938[3] Rochford, Essex, England |
| Died | 14 February 2014 (aged 75) Oxford, England |
| Alma mater | University College London[3] |
| Known for | Genetic and molecular analysis of mushrooms |
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| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | The production, behaviour and genetics of diploids of Coprinus lagopus (1964) |
| Doctoral advisor | Dan Lewis[1][2] |
| Website | royalsociety |
Lorna Ann Casselton, CBE FRS (18 July 1938 – 14 February 2014) 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[4][5] and Coprinus lagopus.[6][7][8][9][10]
Casselton was born on 18 July 1938 in Rochford, Essex[11] to William Charles Henry Smith and Cecile Smith (née Bowman).[10] Her parents' smallholding and her father's interest in natural history and genetics encouraged her and her sister Pauline in the direction of biology.[10] She was educated at Southend High School for Girls, a grammar school in Southend-on-Sea.[12] She studied at University College London, from which she gained a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in botany and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1964.[9][13][14]
Casselton began her career in lecturing and research as an assistant lecturer at Royal Holloway College in London. She was Professor of Genetics at Queen Mary University of London from 1989 to 1991 and was later awarded an AFRC/BBSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, followed by a BBSRC Senior Research Fellowship in 1995.[5]
Casselton was a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford from 1993 to 2003, and was appointed Professor of Fungal Genetics at Oxford in 1997. Her specialism was sexual development in fungi and she contributed to over 100 publications on this topic.[15] She was a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, from 1993 to 2003, and an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, from 2000. She was a member of the Royal Society's Council from 2002 to 2003, and rejoined the Council in 2006 as Vice-President and Foreign Secretary, replacing Professor Dame Julia Higgins.[5][15]
As Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Casselton gave the Royal Society Rutherford Lecture in South Africa and the Blackett Lecture in India, travelling to 27 different countries during three and a half years in office.[16]
She married Peter John Casselton in 1961, divorcing him in 1978. She married William Joseph Dennis Tollett in 1981.[3] She died after a short illness, aged 75.[17]
She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999. She became a Member of the Academia Europaea in 2008, and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by Queen Mary College, University of London in 2009 and University College London in September 2010.[16] She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to fungal genetics and international science.[18] Her nomination for the Royal Society reads:
Distinguished for her genetical and molecular analysis of the mushroom Coprinus cinereus, in particular of the incompatibility mating type factors, A and B. She made diploids which she used to demonstrate for the first time that hyphal fusion, nuclear migration, the formation of a dikaryon ending in sexual reproduction are all controlled by a positive stimulus triggered by the meeting of unlike alleles of the A and B factors. This is in contrast to the oppositional inhibition of the final stages of sexual reproduction by the meeting of like alleles in flowering plants. Using elegant genetic and molecular techniques with different genetic stocks including gene deletions and gene fusions, she has shown that the A factor is a supergene of several multiallelic genes encoding proteins with homeodomains binding to DNA. These trigger sexual development by the association of A proteins with different homeodomains sequences (HD1 and HD2). A factors contain several duplicate genes coding for the A protein but it is only necessary for any one of these genes to be allelic unmatched to trigger the whole sexual development. Other domains characteristic of transcription factors found in mammalian cells suggest that helical regions adjacent to the homeodomain may discriminate between compatible and incompatible protein associations.[19]
The British Mycological Society awarded her an Honorary Membership in 2002.[10]
