Ottoline Leyser

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Dame
Ottoline Leyser
DBE FRS
Leyser in 2016
Born
Henrietta Miriam Ottoline Leyser

(1965-03-07) 7 March 1965 (age 59)
England
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (BA, PhD)[3]
Known forGARNet: Genomic Arabidopsis Resource Network[4]
Spouse
Stephen John Day
​
(m. 1986)​
[3]
ChildrenTwo[3]
AwardsRosalind Franklin Award (2007)
Genetics Society Medal (2016)
EMBO Member (2017)
Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (2012)[1]
Scientific career
FieldsPlant Developmental Biology[2]
Institutions
ThesisAn analysis of fasciated mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana and the role of cytokinin in this phenotype (1990)
Websitewww.slcu.cam.ac.uk/people/leyser-ottoline Edit this at Wikidata

Dame Henrietta Miriam Ottoline Leyser DBE FRS (born 7 March 1965)[3] is a British plant biologist and Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge who is on secondment as CEO of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). From 2013 to 2020 she was the director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge.

Education[edit]

Leyser's birth was registered in Ploughley, Oxfordshire.[5] She attended Wychwood School in Oxford[6] and the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate student of Newnham College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1986 followed by a PhD in Genetics[7] in 1990 for research supervised by Ian Furner.[8]

Research and career[edit]

Leyser's postdoctoral research at Indiana University preceded a lectureship at the University of York, where she worked from 1994 to 2010. She then took part in the formation of the independently funded Sainsbury Laboratory at Cambridge,[9] and was that institute's director from 2013 to 2020.[10] Leyser's research interests are in the genetics of plant development and the interaction of plant hormones with the environment.[11][12]

For a time around 2019, Leyser chaired of the Centre for Science and Policy Management Committee at Cambridge.[13] In 2020 she was appointed the Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation, the body which directs government funding towards research and innovation.[14] She was elected Regius Professor of Botany at Cambridge in the same year.[15]

Awards and honours[edit]

Leyser was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2007. Her nomination reads:

Ottoline Leyser has made unique and central contributions to understanding of development. The focus of her work has been plant hormones, notably auxin, and her identification of the auxin receptor solved a classic problem in biology. She isolated several of the key mutants and has elucidated downstream pathways of hormone action, using this knowledge to characterise the control of shoot architecture. She played a world-leading role in promoting Arabidopsis as a key model organism in modern biology and has provided leadership to the Arabidopsis research community through the resource network GARNet.[11]

Leyser was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.[16] She was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 2009 to 2015,[17] and a member of the Council's Working Party on Biofuels (2009–2011).[18]

Leyser was elected a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2012.[1] She has been a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2014.[19] In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).[20] Other honours include the Society of Experimental Biology’s President’s Medal (2000), the Royal Society's Rosalind Franklin Award (2007), the International Plant Growth Substance Association’s Silver Medal (2010), the UK Genetic Society Medal (2016, which recognises outstanding contributions to genetics research), and the EMBO Women in Science Award (2017).[21]

Leyser was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to plant science, science in society, and equality and diversity in science.[22] That same year, she received the Women in Science Award from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS).[23]

Personal life[edit]

Leyser is the daughter of the historians Henrietta Leyser and Karl Leyser.[3] She married Stephen John Day in 1986 and has one son and one daughter.[3] She has been a guest of Jim Al-Khalili on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific multiple times.[24][25] in 2023 she was a guest of Michael Berkeley on Private Passions.[26]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected". National Academy of Sciences. 1 May 2012. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  2. ^ Ottoline Leyser publications indexed by Google Scholar Edit this at Wikidata
  3. ^ a b c d e f Anon (2015). "Leyser, Prof. (Henrietta Miriam) Ottoline". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.245819. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ Beale, M; Dupree, P; Lilley, K; Beynon, J; Trick, M; Clarke, J; Bevan, M; Bancroft, I; Jones, J; May, S; Van De Sande, K; Leyser, O (2002). "GARNet, the Genomic Arabidopsis Resource Network". Trends in Plant Science. 7 (4): 145–7. doi:10.1016/s1360-1385(01)02224-5. PMID 11950604.
  5. ^ "FreeBMD Entry Info". www.freebmd.org.uk.
  6. ^ "Ottoline Leyser on Radio 4". Wychwood School. 17 May 2017.
  7. ^ Leyser, Henrietta Miriam Ottoline (1990). An analysis of fasciated mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana and the role of cytokinin in this phenotype. lib.cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 557279110. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.357803.
  8. ^ "Great British bioscience pioneers – Professor Ottoline Leyser". BBSRC. Archived from the original on 16 June 2015.
  9. ^ Amsen, Eva (15 November 2011). "An interview with Ottoline Leyser". Development. 138 (22): 4815–17. doi:10.1242/dev.075333. PMID 22028022.
  10. ^ "Ottoline Leyser". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  11. ^ a b "EC/2007/26: Ottoline Leyser Certificate of Election". Royal Society. Archived from the original on 10 July 2019.
  12. ^ Sedwick, C. (2014). "Ottoline Leyser: The beauty of plant genetics". The Journal of Cell Biology. 204 (3): 284–85. doi:10.1083/jcb.2043pi. PMC 3912528. PMID 24493584.
  13. ^ "Management Committee". Centre for Science and Policy. University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 19 July 2019 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ^ "Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser to join UK Research and Innovation as new Chief Executive". UKRI. 14 May 2020. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  15. ^ Hlaba, K. L. (14 May 2020). "Professor Ottoline Leyser DBE FRS elected as Regius Professor of Botany". www.globalfood.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  16. ^ "No. 58929". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2008. p. 7.
  17. ^ "Past Council Members". Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Archived from the original on 22 April 2017. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  18. ^ Bioethics' official website Archived 1 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine, nuffieldbioethics.org; accessed 1 January 2017.
  19. ^ "Curriculum Vitae: Prof. Dr. Ottoline Leyser" (PDF). leopoldina.org. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  20. ^ NTNU's list of honorary doctors, ntnu.edu; accessed 23 August 2021.
  21. ^ "Genetics Society Medal". Genetics Society. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  22. ^ "No. 61803". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2016. p. N8.
  23. ^ Jukic, Igor. "Ottoline Leyser honoured with the 2017 FEBS | EMBO Women in Science Award". EMBO. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  24. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Ottoline Leyser on how plants decide what to do". bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  25. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, The Life Scientific at 10: What does it take to be a scientist?". BBC. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
  26. ^ "Dame Ottolinne Leyser".
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