Edward M. De Robertis

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De Robertis (2012)

Edward Michael De Robertis , called Eddy De Robertis , (born June 6, 1947 in Boston ) is an American developmental biologist and biochemist.

Life

He is the son of the Argentine biologist Eduardo De Robertis (1913–1988) and was born when his father was a post-doctoral student at MIT. De Robertis grew up in Uruguay and studied medicine there (PhD 1971). He then studied chemistry and received his doctorate in Buenos Aires. He then worked at the University of Cambridge with John Gurdon and at the Molecular Biology Laboratory of the Medical Research Council before becoming Professor in Basel in 1980. In 1985 he became Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles . He has also been doing research at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1994 .

plant

He is known for discoveries about the control of gene expression during development. In 1977, together with Gurdon, he demonstrated in experiments transplanting cell nuclei from a frog into the egg cell of other amphibians that the cytoplasm influences gene expression during development. In 1984 he and Walter Gehring discovered the first gene controlling the development of vertebrates (Hox) and found their conservation in evolution, since they are also found in Drosophila. Later he managed the elucidation of some of the mechanisms by which the cell environment during the development of gene expression and cell differentiation controls (the phenomenon of by Hilde Mangold and Hans Spemann discovered Spemann organizer ), in this case for. The signal protein chordin plays a role, which acts as an inhibitor for the growth factor BMP4 (bone morphogenetic protein) and is broken down by a protease (tolloid). The signaling pathway plays a role in the ventral-dorsal differentiation in many organisms throughout the history of the tribe. The gene involved is the goosecoid Hox gene. The research took place in the 1990s. He later found interactions with other signaling pathways (such as the Wnt signaling pathway ).

Honors and memberships

In 2009 he received the first Ross Harrison Prize from the International Society of Developmental Biologists , of which he was president from 2002 to 2006.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2013), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , Fellow of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and since 2009 a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences . He is an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris VI.

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ De Robertis, Gurdon, Gene Activation in somatic nuclei after injection into amphibian oocytes, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 74, 1977, pp. 2470-2474
  2. ↑ AE Carrasco, W. McGinnis, WJ Gehring, EM De Robertis, Cloning of a Xenopus laevis gene expressed during early embryogenesis that codes for a peptide region homologous to Drosophila homeotic genes: implications for vertebrate development, Cell, Volume 37, 1984, p 409-441
  3. ^ EM De Robertis: Spemann's organizer and self-regulation in amphibian embryos, Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol., Vol. 7, 2006, pp. 296-302
  4. ↑ KWY Cho, B. Blumberg, H. Steinbeisser, EM De Robertis: Molecular Nature of Spemann's Organizer: the Role of the Xenopus Homeobox Gene goosecoid, Cell, Volume 67, 1991, pp. 1111-1120
personal data
SURNAME Robertis, Edward M. De
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robertis, Edward Michael De
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American developmental biologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts , United States