Robert A. Martienssen Explained

Rob Martienssen
Birth Name:Robert Anthony Martienssen
Alma Mater:University of Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Doctoral Advisor:David Baulcombe
Workplaces:Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Thesis Title:The molecular genetics of alpha-amylase gene families in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).
Thesis Url:http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.382600
Thesis Year:1986

Robert Anthony Martienssen (born December 21, 1960) is a British plant biologist, Howard Hughes Medical Institute–Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation investigator,[1] and professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, US.[2] [3] [4]

Education

Robert Martienssen attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 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,[5] supervised by David Baulcombe.[6] 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.[7] In 1989 he was hired as a principal investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Research and career

Martienssen has made major discoveries relating to the way plants control the expression of their genes. Working with maize,[8] yeast[3] and the weed Arabidopsis, he focuses on the chemical modifications to DNA that determine which genes are active — a process known as epigenetics.

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.

His work was cited by the journal Science as part of its Breakthrough of the Year: 2002 feature[9] 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.

Awards

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Robert A. Martienssen, PhD HHMI.org. 2015-09-27.
  2. Web site: CSHLRob Martienssen . www.cshl.edu . 17 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150103074206/http://www.cshl.edu/Faculty/Rob-Martienssen.html . 3 January 2015 . dead.
  3. 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.. A diffusion model for the coordination of DNA replication in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Scientific Reports. 6. 2016. 18757. 10.1038/srep18757. 26729303. 4700429. 2016NatSR...618757P.
  4. Quadrana. Leandro. Bortolini Silveira. Amanda. Mayhew. George F. LeBlanc. Chantal. Martienssen. Robert A. Jeddeloh. Jeffrey A. Colot. Vincent. The Arabidopsis thaliana mobilome and its impact at the species level. eLife. 5. 2016. 10.7554/eLife.15716. 27258693. 4917339 . free .
  5. PhD. University of Cambridge. The molecular genetics of alpha-amylase gene families in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).. Robert Anthony. Martienssen. 1986. . lib.cam.ac.uk. 59751016.
  6. Web site: Luminaries: Rob Martienssen. 13 February 2017.
  7. 10.1101/gad.4.3.331. Somatically heritable switches in the DNA modification of Mu transposable elements monitored with a suppressible mutant in maize. 1990. Martienssen. R.. Barkan. A.. Taylor. W. C.. Freeling. M.. Genes & Development. 4. 3. 331–343. 2159936. free.
  8. 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.. Gillam. B.. Chen. W.. Yan. L.. Higginbotham. J.. Cardenas. M.. Waligorski. J.. Applebaum. E.. Phelps. L.. Falcone. J.. Kanchi. K.. Thane. T.. Scimone. A.. Thane. N.. Henke. J.. Wang. T.. Ruppert. J.. Shah. N.. Rotter. K.. Hodges. J.. Ingenthron. E.. Cordes. M.. Kohlberg. S.. Sgro. J.. Delgado. B.. Mead. K.. Chinwalla. A.. Leonard. S.. Crouse. K.. Collura. K.. Kudrna. D.. Currie. J.. He. R.. Angelova. A.. Rajasekar. S.. Mueller. T.. Lomeli. R.. Scara. G.. Ko. A.. Delaney. K.. Wissotski. M.. Lopez. G.. Campos. D.. Braidotti. M.. Ashley. E.. Golser. W.. Kim. H.. Lee. S.. Lin. J.. Dujmic. Z.. Kim. W.. Talag. J.. Zuccolo. A.. Fan. C.. Sebastian. A.. Kramer. M.. Spiegel. L.. Nascimento. L.. Zutavern. T.. Miller. B.. Ambroise. C.. Muller. S.. Spooner. W.. Narechania. A.. Ren. L.. Wei. S.. Kumari. S.. Faga. B.. Levy. M. J.. McMahan. L.. Van Buren. P.. 21433160. Vaughn. M. W.. Ying. K.. Yeh. C.-T.. Emrich. S. J.. Jia. Y.. Kalyanaraman. A.. Hsia. A.-P.. Barbazuk. W. B.. Baucom. R. S.. Brutnell. T. P.. Carpita. N. C.. Chaparro. C.. Chia. J.-M.. Deragon. J.-M.. Estill. J. C.. Fu. Y.. Jeddeloh. J. A.. Han. Y.. Lee. H.. Li. P.. Lisch. D. R.. Liu. S.. Liu. Z.. Nagel. D. H.. McCann. M. C.. SanMiguel. P.. Myers. A. M.. Nettleton. D.. Nguyen. J.. Penning. B. W.. Ponnala. L.. Schneider. K. L.. Schwartz. D. C.. Sharma. A.. Soderlund. C.. Springer. N. M.. Sun. Q.. Wang. H.. Waterman. M.. Westerman. R.. Wolfgruber. T. K.. Yang. L.. Yu. Y.. Zhang. L.. Zhou. S.. Zhu. Q.. Bennetzen. J. L.. Dawe. R. K.. Jiang. J.. Jiang. N.. Presting. G. G.. Wessler. S. R.. Aluru. S.. Martienssen. R. A.. Clifton. S. W.. McCombie. W. R.. Wing. R. A.. Wilson. R. K.. The B73 Maize Genome: Complexity, Diversity, and Dynamics. Science. 326. 5956. 2009. 1112–1115. 10.1126/science.1178534. 19965430. 2009Sci...326.1112S. 29.
  9. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160322053532/http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2002/12/breakthrough-year-small-rnas. 2016-03-22. Breakthrough of the Year: Small RNAs. 2002. sciencemag.org. Jennifer. Couzin-Frankel.
  10. Web site: Robert A. Martienssen. HHMI.org. en. 2020-04-30.
  11. Web site: 2003 Newcomb Cleveland Prize Recipients. American Association for the Advancement of Science. en. 2020-04-30.
  12. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20151117111208/https://royalsociety.org/people/robert-martienssen-11890/. 2015-11-17. Professor Robert Martienssen FRS. Royal Society. London. Anon. 2006. royalsociety.org. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
  13. Web site: Robert A. Martienssen. people.embo.org. European Molecular Biology Organization. Heidelberg.
  14. Web site: CSHL's Rob Martienssen honored with prestigious Barbara McClintock Prize. 2018-01-19. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. en-US. 2020-04-30.
  15. Web site: Rob Martienssen wins Martin Gibbs Medal for plant research. 15 April 2019.
  16. Web site: Martin Gibbs Medal.

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