Alan Wolffe (21 June 1959 – 26 May 2001) was an English cell biologist known for his prominent role in establishing that the chromosomal organisation of

genes In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

is a dynamic phenomenon determining their expression, cell division and differentiation. He married Elizabeth and had two children, Max and Katherine. Wolffe was born on 21 June 1959 in Burton-on-Trent,

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

, England. He was successful at

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

early on, receiving the Biological Council Prize upon leaving secondary school. He then attended

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, receiving a first class B.A. degree in 1981. He did his PhD under Prof. Jamshed Tata at the National Institute for Medical Research, London. He was awarded an EMBO long-term postdoctoral fellowship in 1984 and moved to the laboratory of Donald D. Brown at the Department of

Embryology Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, '' -logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos and ...

, Carnegie Institution of Washington in Baltimore. He joined the National Institute of Health in 1987, working firstly with Gary Felsenfeld in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases). In 1990 he was appointed Chief of the newly founded Laboratory of Molecular Embryology (LME). He left NIH and moved to the biotechnology firm Sangamo BioSciences Inc. in

Richmond, California Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was municipal corporation, incorporated on August 7, 1905, and has a Richmond, California City Council, city council.

, in 2000, as Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer. He was a prolific writer, publishing hundreds of articles, literature reviews and two books. He will be known mainly for his work in promoting the idea that

chromatin Chromatin is a complex of DNA and protein found in eukaryotic cells. The primary function is to package long DNA molecules into more compact, denser structures. This prevents the strands from becoming tangled and also plays important roles in r ...

plays a dynamic role in regulating gene expression. He died as a result of injuries suffered in a road accident in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

on 26 May 2001.

Sources

http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/114/17/3073.pdf Chromatin: Structure and Function Alan Wolffe. Cell Volume 105, Issue 7, 29 June 2001, Pages 849-850 {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolffe, Alan Cell biologists 1959 births 2001 deaths 20th-century British biologists 21st-century British biologists British expatriate academics in the United States People from Burton upon Trent 20th-century English scientists 21st-century English scientists English biologists Alumni of the University of Oxford National Institutes of Health people English emigrants to the United States