Margaret Buckingham facts for kids

Margaret Buckingham, ForMemRS (born 2 March 1945) is a British scientist. She studies how bodies develop. Her work focuses on how muscles and hearts are formed.

She is an honorary professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. She is also a director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France. She is a member of several important science groups.

About Margaret Buckingham

Margaret Buckingham studied in Scotland and at Oxford University. She earned degrees in Biochemistry, which is the study of the chemistry of living things.

After her studies, she moved to Paris, France. She joined the Pasteur Institute, where she has worked ever since. She is now an honorary professor and a director at the CNRS.

She helps guide research for the ERC. She also leads a committee that gives awards for heart research. In 2013, she won the highest award from the CNRS, the Gold Medal.

Margaret Buckingham is a member of many important science academies. These include the French Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society in London. She has both French and British nationality. She is married and has three children.

Her Scientific Work

Margaret Buckingham is a developmental biologist. This means she studies how living things grow and develop. She is interested in how basic cells become specific parts of the body. This happens during embryo development.

She has studied how both skeletal muscles and the heart form. She uses mousees to learn about this. She looks at how cells behave and which genes control what cells become.

How Muscles Form

Margaret Buckingham and her team did important research on muscle genes. They found out how these genes work inside the body. They studied special factors that help muscles form.

They showed that a gene called Myf5 appears before another gene called MyoD. If Myf5 and Mrf4 genes are missing, cells cannot form skeletal muscles. Instead, they become other types of cells.

Her team also found that a gene called Pax3 helps activate Myf5 genes. This happens in different places where muscles are forming. They discovered that Pax3 is very important for starting muscle development in an embryo.

They also found special cells called Pax3/Pax7-positive progenitors. These cells are needed for muscles to grow in a fetus. They also showed that satellite cells, which are found with adult muscle fibers, are like stem cells. These stem cells help muscles repair themselves after injury.

How the Heart Forms

Margaret Buckingham's main discovery about heart development is the "second heart field" (SHF). This is a major source of cells that form specific parts of the heart. The way these cells behave is controlled by genes and signals. An example is the FGF10 gene.

Her team also mapped out how different parts of the heart form. They found that the second heart field contributes to some parts of the heart. The first lineage contributes to the entire left side of the heart. This research helps us understand how different parts of the heart are connected.

This work is important for understanding how the heart develops. It also helps doctors understand heart problems that babies are born with.

Awards and Honours

• Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur, 2018 (a high French award)
• Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2014
• Foreign Member of the Royal Society, 2013
• CNRS Gold Medal, 2013 (highest award from the French National Center for Scientific Research)
• Commandeur de Ordre National du Mérite, 2013 (another high French award)
• Officier de la Légion d'honneur, 2011
• Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, US, 2011
• Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society for Developmental Biology, 2010
• Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite, 2008
• Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, 2002
• CNRS Silver Medal, 1999
• Member of the Academia Europaea, 1998
• Prix Jaffé of the Académie des sciences, 1990
• Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO), 1979