Rob Martienssen

FRS
Born
Robert Anthony Martienssen
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (BA, PhD)[2]
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsCold Spring Harbor Laboratory
ThesisThe molecular genetics of alpha-amylase gene families in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). (1986)
Doctoral advisorDavid Baulcombe[1]
Websitewww.cshl.edu/research/faculty-staff/rob-martienssen/

Robert Anthony Martienssen (born December 21, 1960)[2] is a British plant biologist, Howard Hughes Medical Institute–Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation investigator,[4] and professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, US.[5][6][7][8]

Education

Robert Martienssen attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge,[2] completing his BA in 1982 and continuing on to his PhD in 1986 on the molecular genetics of alpha-amylase gene families in common wheat,[9] supervised by David Baulcombe.[1] He received an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship to travel to the University of California, Berkeley where he was a postdoctoral researcher with Michael Freeling from 1986-1988 where he showed that changes methylation of transposons could be associated with genetically heritable changes in the phenotype of corn plants.[10] In 1989 he was hired as a principal investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.[1]

Research and career

Martienssen has made major discoveries relating to the way plants control the expression of their genes. Working with maize,[11] yeast[6] and the weed Arabidopsis, he focuses on the chemical modifications to DNA that determine which genes are active — a process known as epigenetics.[12][3]

Martienssen’s work explains the effect on plants of ‘jumping genes’, or DNA transposable elements, reported in 1951 by Barbara McClintock, whom he worked alongside early in his career. He discovered that small pieces of RNA, in association with proteins of the Argonaute family, silence transposons in seeds so that gene expression remains stable from one generation to the next.[12]

His work was cited by the journal Science as part of its Breakthrough of the Year: 2002 feature[13] on small RNAs. He has extended his epigenetic studies from seeds to pollen, and his discoveries have implications for plant breeding — including hybrid cloning — and the development of biofuels.[12]

Awards

References

  1. ^ a b c "Luminaries: Rob Martienssen". 13 February 2017.
  2. ^ a b c "MARTIENSSEN, Prof. Robert Anthony". Who's Who. Vol. 2020 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ a b Slotkin, R. Keith; Martienssen, Robert (2007). "Transposable elements and the epigenetic regulation of the genome". Nature Reviews Genetics. 8 (4): 272–285. doi:10.1038/nrg2072. PMID 17363976. S2CID 9719784.
  4. ^ "Robert A. Martienssen, PhD | HHMI.org". Retrieved 2015-09-27.
  5. ^ "CSHLRob Martienssen". www.cshl.edu. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  6. ^ a b Pichugina, T.; Sugawara, T.; Kaykov, A.; Schierding, W.; Masuda, K.; Uewaki, J.; Grand, R. S.; Allison, J. R.; Martienssen, R. A.; Nurse, P.; Ueno, M.; O’Sullivan, J. M. (2016). "A diffusion model for the coordination of DNA replication in Schizosaccharomyces pombe". Scientific Reports. 6: 18757. Bibcode:2016NatSR...618757P. doi:10.1038/srep18757. PMC 4700429. PMID 26729303. Open access icon
  7. ^ Quadrana, Leandro; Bortolini Silveira, Amanda; Mayhew, George F; LeBlanc, Chantal; Martienssen, Robert A; Jeddeloh, Jeffrey A; Colot, Vincent (2016). "The Arabidopsis thaliana mobilome and its impact at the species level". eLife. 5. doi:10.7554/eLife.15716. PMC 4917339. PMID 27258693. Open access icon
  8. ^ Robert A. Martienssen's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  9. ^ Martienssen, Robert Anthony (1986). The molecular genetics of alpha-amylase gene families in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). lib.cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 59751016. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.382600.
  10. ^ Martienssen, R.; Barkan, A.; Taylor, W. C.; Freeling, M. (1990). "Somatically heritable switches in the DNA modification of Mu transposable elements monitored with a suppressible mutant in maize". Genes & Development. 4 (3): 331–343. doi:10.1101/gad.4.3.331. PMID 2159936.
  11. ^ Schnable, P. S.; Ware, D.; Fulton, R. S.; Stein, J. C.; Wei, F.; Pasternak, S.; Liang, C.; Zhang, J.; Fulton, L.; Graves, T. A.; Minx, P.; Reily, A. D.; Courtney, L.; Kruchowski, S. S.; Tomlinson, C.; Strong, C.; Delehaunty, K.; Fronick, C.; Courtney, B.; Rock, S. M.; Belter, E.; Du, F.; Kim, K.; Abbott, R. M.; Cotton, M.; Levy, A.; Marchetto, P.; Ochoa, K.; Jackson, S. M.; et al. (2009). "The B73 Maize Genome: Complexity, Diversity, and Dynamics". Science. 326 (5956): 1112–1115. Bibcode:2009Sci...326.1112S. doi:10.1126/science.1178534. PMID 19965430. S2CID 21433160.
  12. ^ a b c d Anon (2006). "Professor Robert Martienssen FRS". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved 2016-03-09.((cite web)): CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  13. ^ a b Couzin-Frankel, Jennifer (2002). "Breakthrough of the Year: Small RNAs". sciencemag.org. Archived from the original on 2016-03-22.
  14. ^ "Robert A. Martienssen". HHMI.org. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  15. ^ "2003 Newcomb Cleveland Prize Recipients". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  16. ^ "Robert A. Martienssen". people.embo.org. Heidelberg: European Molecular Biology Organization.
  17. ^ "CSHL's Rob Martienssen honored with prestigious Barbara McClintock Prize". Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 2018-01-19. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  18. ^ "Rob Martienssen wins Martin Gibbs Medal for plant research". 15 April 2019.
  19. ^ "Martin Gibbs Medal".
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