Andrew Millar (biologist) facts for kids

Andrew John McWalter Millar is a Scottish scientist who studies how living things keep time. He is a chronobiologist, which means he studies "circadian rhythms" – the natural daily cycles of our bodies and plants. He also works in systems biology and molecular genetics. Dr. Millar is a professor at The University of Edinburgh. He is famous for his work on how plants tell time, especially using a special glowing method to study plant clocks. He was chosen as a member of the Royal Society in 2012 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013, which are big honors for scientists.

Andrew Millar's Life and Education

Andrew Millar grew up in Luxembourg. He went to Cambridge University in England, where he earned his first degree in 1988. He studied genetics and won awards for his work in botany (the study of plants) and genetics.

After Cambridge, he moved to the United States for his PhD at The Rockefeller University. He studied plant molecular genetics and finished his PhD in 1994. Then, he did more research at the University of Virginia until 1995.

In 1996, Dr. Millar became a professor at the University of Warwick. There, he started combining his plant time studies with synthetic biology (designing new biological parts) and systems biology. In 2005, he moved to The University of Edinburgh. He helped start SynthSys in 2007, which is a research center for synthetic and systems biology at the university.

Discoveries About Plant Clocks

Dr. Millar is a leader in studying plant circadian rhythms. These are the daily cycles that help plants know when to grow, open their leaves, or flower.

How Plants Glow to Show Time

Dr. Millar is known for using a special method to study plant clocks. He used a gene from fireflies that makes them glow, called luciferase.

In 1992, he and his team connected this glowing gene to a plant gene called cab2. This allowed them to see when the cab2 gene was active in plants by watching it glow. The glowing showed the plant's daily rhythm.

In 1995, Dr. Millar used this glowing method to find Arabidopsis plants with unusual daily cycles. They found that a mutant plant, called toc1, had a shorter daily rhythm than normal plants. These important discoveries were even featured on the cover of Science magazine. Dr. Millar's glowing experiments have greatly helped us understand the plant's internal clock.

The Role of ELF3 and ELF4 Genes

Dr. Millar also helped discover how two genes, ELF3 and ELF4, affect the plant's daily clock. They found that if a plant had problems with its elf3 gene, its clock didn't work right in constant light. This showed that ELF3 is important for the clock to respond to light.

They also showed that ELF3 and ELF4 are needed for other important clock genes, Circadian Clock Associated 1 (CCA1) and Late Elongated Hypocotyl (LHY), to work properly. These discoveries helped scientists understand how the plant's clock works and how it uses light signals.

Why Plant Clocks Are Important for Survival

In 2005, Dr. Millar and his team found out why plant clocks are so helpful. They discovered that plants with a good clock grow better and make more food through photosynthesis.

They tested Arabidopsis plants with different clock speeds in different light-dark cycles. They found that plants were healthiest when their internal clock matched the daily cycle of their environment. For example, if a plant's internal clock was 24 hours, it grew best in a 24-hour light-dark cycle. This showed that having a clock that matches the environment helps plants survive and thrive. This is a great example of natural selection at work.

Current Research

Dr. Millar's recent work in 2017 involved creating computer models to predict how changes in a plant's clock affect its growth and other features. His team used data about how plants use energy and grow to build these models. The models helped them understand how a plant's clock affects things like how fast it grows, when it flowers, and how it uses stored energy.

Andrew Millar's Positions

• BBSRC Research Development Fellow (2002–2007)
• Manager of the Interdisciplinary Program for Cellular Regulation (2003–2004)
• Professor of Systems Biology, University of Edinburgh (2005–present)
• Founding Director of the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh (2007–2011)
• Elected EMBO member (2011)
• Fellow of the Royal Society (2012)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2013)

Awards and Honors

• Society for Experimental Biology President's Medal (1999)
• British Association for the Advancement of Science Charles Darwin Award Lecture (2000)
• Saltire Award for Scottish Research (2009)
• Aschoff's Rule (2015)

See also

• Circadian rhythm
• ELF4
• Steve A. Kay
• Gene D. Block