Susan R. Wessler facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Susan Wessler
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Susan Wessler at the Royal Society admissions day in London, July 2017
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Susan Randi Wessler
1953 (age 71–72) |
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| Awards | ForMemRS |
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| Thesis | In vitro and in vivo expression of the leucine operon of Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium (1980) |
Susan Randi Wessler (born in 1953, in New York City) is an American plant molecular biologist and geneticist. This means she studies the tiny parts of plants, like their DNA, and how they pass traits from one generation to the next. She is a very important professor of genetics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR).
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Susan Wessler's Education
Susan Wessler finished high school at the Bronx High School of Science in 1970. She then went to college and earned her first degree in Biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1974. Later, she got her Ph.D. (a very high degree) in Biochemistry from Cornell University in 1980.
Susan Wessler's Career and Discoveries
After finishing her studies, Dr. Wessler worked as a special researcher at the Carnegie Institution of Washington from 1980 to 1982. In 1983, she became a professor at the University of Georgia (UGA), where she taught about plants. She became a full professor in 1992 and was recognized as a distinguished research professor in 1994.
In 2006, Professor Wessler was chosen as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professor. This is a special honor that helps scientists do important research and teach. She also works as a professor at the Keck Graduate Institute in California.
What Does Her Research Focus On?
Dr. Wessler's research mainly looks at special pieces of DNA in plants called transposable elements. Think of these as "jumping genes" because they can move around within a plant's DNA. She studies how these jumping genes help plants change and develop over time.
Her work has helped us understand how these elements create differences in plants. She also found out how they can make many copies of themselves without harming the plant. Her lab showed that these jumping genes can act like "introns," which are parts of DNA that get removed when a gene is used. They also discovered that a type of jumping gene called "retrotransposons" causes many natural changes in corn plants.
Modern Discoveries with Computers
In the age of genomics (studying all of an organism's DNA), Dr. Wessler's lab was one of the first to use computers to study transposable elements. This led to the discovery of miniature inverted repeat transposable elements (MITEs). These MITEs are often found near plant genes.
As an HHMI Professor, Dr. Wessler also created a program called the "Dynamic Genome Program." This program lets new college students experience the excitement of scientific discovery firsthand by working on real research projects.
Awards and Special Recognitions
Dr. Wessler has received many important awards for her amazing work:
- She was chosen as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2017. This is a very high honor from a famous scientific group in the UK.
- She became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2013.
- She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. This is one of the highest honors for a scientist in the U.S.
- She also served on the council of the National Academy of Sciences.
- She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006.
- She became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.
- She received the American Society of Plant Biologists' Stephen Hales prize in 2011.
- She won the FASEB Excellence in Science Award in 2012.
- She was awarded the McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies in 2015.
- She received the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology Life Sciences Prize in 2019.
