Not to be confused with Rosemary Carpenter Fitzgerald.
Rosemary Carpenter | |
---|---|
Alma mater | University of East Anglia |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | John Innes Centre |
Thesis | Studies on genetic instability in Antirrhinum majus (1998) |
Rosemary Carpenter is a British plant geneticist known for her work on members of the genus Antirrhinum, commonly known as a snapdragon, for which she and Enrico Coen were awarded the 2004 Darwin Medal by the Royal Society.[1]
Starting in the 1960, Carpenter worked with Brian Harrison at the John Innes Centre on unstable mutants of the snapdragon Antirrhinum.[2] After meeting Carpenter during an interview at the John Innes Centre in 1983, Enrico Coen joined the center and they began a long collaboration with him using snapdragons as a model system to understand jumping genes and evolution.[3][2] They applied a combination of molecular, genetic and morphological approaches to snapdragons with the goal of elucidating patterns in flower development[4] using the hundreds of Antirrhihum mutants established by Carpenter.[5] Carpenter retired in 2003.[6]
Carpenter is a plant geneticist known for her research on the population genetics of the snapdragon, Antirrhihum.[7][2] Working with Brian Harrison in the 1970s, she defined genetic instabilities in Antirrhinum and the role of temperature in controlling the rate of instability of specific genes[8][9] and transposable elements that occur in both maize and snapdragons.[10] This was the first time a link between genetic instability and Antirrhihum was formalized, a milestone in research using snapdragons.[11] The instability of genes in snapdragons begin Carpenter's collaboration with Enrico Coen, where they first worked on transposons and the effect of temperature on the excision of specific genes[12] and how the transposable elements cause variability in gene expression.[13][14] Carpenter, Coen, and their students isolated the genes controlling floral development.[15][16][17] These genetic investigations allowed them to define the patterns of color,[18][19] shape,[20][21][22] and floral asymmetry[23][24] in snapdragons and other plants. Carpenter's research on snapdragons includes investigations of how snapdragons select their colors using small RNA,[25] which alter the selection of colors in the snapdragons.[26]