Caroline Dean

Dame Caroline Dean DBE FRS[8] (born 2 April 1957) is a British plant scientist working at the John Innes Centre. She is focused on understanding the molecular controls used by plants to seasonally judge when to flower.[7] She is specifically interested in vernalisation — the acceleration of flowering in plants by exposure to periods of prolonged cold.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

Dame Caroline Dean

DBE FRS
Born (1957-04-02) 2 April 1957[1]
Alma materUniversity of York (BSc, DPhil)[2]
Known for
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1991)
[1]
Childrenone son, one daughter[1][5]
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisInvestigations of genome expression in young wheat leaves (1983)
Websitewww.jic.ac.uk/staff/caroline-dean

Education

Dean was educated at the University of York, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology in 1978 and a PhD. in Biology[2] in 1982.[4][16]

Research and career

Dean's research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council[17] European Research Council, EU-Marie Curie and EMBO and focuses on research on gene regulation and the intersection of chromatin, transcription and non-coding RNAs. Her goal is to understand the chromatin dynamics that enable switching between epigenetic states and quantitative regulation of gene expression. This mechanistic analysis is focused on one gene encoding the floral repressor FLC. Epigenetic switching and quantitative regulation of FLC play a central role in seasonal timing in plants. This acceleration of flowering by prolonged cold is a classic epigenetic process called vernalisation.

FLC regulation involves an antisense-mediated chromatin mechanism that coordinately influences transcription initiation and elongation. As plants overwinter FLC expression is then epigenetically silenced through a cold-induced, cis-based, Polycomb switching mechanism. The group are mechanistically dissecting these conserved chromatin mechanisms and investigating how they have been modulated during adaptation.

She uses Arabidopsis as a reference to establish the regulatory hierarchy and then use this information to translate into other species. She was a pioneer in Arabidopsis becoming a key model organism in plant science.[18]

Awards and honours

Her nomination for the Royal Society reads:

Dean has made outstanding contributions in the study of developmental timing in plants. Her work has revealed the mechanism by which plants remember they have experienced winter, demonstrated novel RNA processing mechanisms controlling flowering and determined the molecular basis of natural variation in Arabidopsis flowering time. Her discoveries have broad significance in the fields of epigenetics, post-transcriptional regulation and molecular evolution. Dean has also made a massive contribution to the development of Arabidopsis as a model, establishing resources for genetic mapping and insertional mutagenesis, and providing physical maps that underpinned the sequencing of the genome.[8]

Other awards include:

  • 1993 - 2002  Honorary Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia
  • 1999 - Elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
  • 2004 - Dean was appointed office of the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
  • 2007 - she was awarded the Genetics Society Medal
  • 2008 - the United States National Academy of Sciences elected her a foreign member[19]
  • 2008 - elected a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
  • 2015 - FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award.
  • 2016 - Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to plant science research and women in science.[20]
  • 2016 - Dean was awarded with the Darwin Medal by the Royal Society for her work addressing fundamental questions in the perception of temperature cues and how modifications in epigenetic mechanisms play an important role in adaptation.[21]
  • 2018 - she was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award
  • 2020 - she received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture.[22]

Personal life

Dean is married to Jonathan D. G. Jones and has one son and one daughter.[1][5]

References
  1. Anon (2015). "Dean, Dame Caroline". Who's Who. ukwhoswho.com (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U10000433. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  2. Dean, Caroline (1983). Investigations of genome expression in young wheat leaves (PhD thesis). University of York. OCLC 500010022. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.331606.
  3. Meinke, D. W.; Cherry, J. M.; Dean, C.; Rounsley, S. D.; Koornneef, M. (1998). "Arabidopsis thaliana: A Model Plant for Genome Analysis". Science. 282 (5389): 662, 679–82. Bibcode:1998Sci...282..662M. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.462.4735. doi:10.1126/science.282.5389.662. PMID 9784120.
  4. Bastow, R.; Mylne, J. S.; Lister, C.; Lippman, Z.; Martienssen, R. A.; Dean, C. (2004). "Vernalization requires epigenetic silencing of FLC by histone methylation". Nature. 427 (6970): 164–167. Bibcode:2004Natur.427..164B. doi:10.1038/nature02269. PMID 14712277.
  5. Dean, Caroline; Osborn, Mary; Oshlack, Alicia; Thornton, Janet (2012). "Women in science". Genome Biology. 13 (3): 148. doi:10.1186/gb4005. PMC 3439960. PMID 22405408.
  6. "John Innes Centre scientist receives top international honour". John Innes Centre. 2008. Archived from the original on 15 August 2011.
  7. Caroline Dean publications indexed by Google Scholar
  8. "EC/2004/15: Dean, Caroline". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015.
  9. Gitschier, J. (2013). "How Cool is That: An Interview with Caroline Dean". PLOS Genetics. 9 (6): e1003593. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003593. PMC 3694836. PMID 23825965.
  10. Vaeck, M.; Reynaerts, A.; Höfte, H.; Jansens, S.; De Beuckeleer, M.; Dean, C.; Zabeau, M.; Montagu, M. V.; Leemans, J. (1987). "Transgenic plants protected from insect attack". Nature. 328 (6125): 33–37. Bibcode:1987Natur.328...33V. doi:10.1038/328033a0.
  11. Simpson, G. G.; Dean, C. (2002). "Arabidopsis, the Rosetta Stone of Flowering Time?". Science. 296 (5566): 285–289. Bibcode:2002Sci...296..285S. doi:10.1126/science.296.5566.285. PMID 11951029.
  12. Caroline Dean publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  13. Sundaresan, V.; Springer, P.; Volpe, T.; Haward, S.; Jones, J. D.; Dean, C.; Ma, H.; Martienssen, R. (1995). "Patterns of gene action in plant development revealed by enhancer trap and gene trap transposable elements". Genes & Development. 9 (14): 1797–1810. doi:10.1101/gad.9.14.1797. PMID 7622040.
  14. Johanson, U.; West, J.; Lister, C.; Michaels, S.; Amasino, R.; Dean, C. (2000). "Molecular Analysis of FRIGIDA, a Major Determinant of Natural Variation in Arabidopsis Flowering Time". Science. 290 (5490): 344–347. Bibcode:2000Sci...290..344J. doi:10.1126/science.290.5490.344. PMID 11030654.
  15. Lister, C.; Dean, C. (1993). "Recombinant inbred lines for mapping RFLP and phenotypic markers in Arabidopsis thaliana". The Plant Journal. 4 (4): 745–750. doi:10.1046/j.1365-313X.1993.04040745.x.
  16. "Caroline Dean, Cell & Developmental Biology". 23 November 2018. Archived from the original on 14 July 2013.
  17. "UK Government Grants awarded to Caroline Dean"., via Research Councils UK
  18. "Caroline Interview - The Company of Biologists" (PDF).
  19. "Caroline Dean". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  20. "No. 61608". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2016. p. B8.
  21. Darwin Medal 2016
  22. "The Wolf Prize". Wolf Foundation. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
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