Elliot Meyerowitz (born May 22, 1951) is an American biologist.

Career

Meyerowitz did his undergraduate work at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

(A.B. in biology, 1973), where he worked part-time in the laboratory of Cyrus Levinthal on combined microscopic and computational methods for tracing axons and dendritic trees in the nervous systems of fish. His graduate work was in the Department of Biology at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(Ph.D. 1977), where he worked in the laboratory of Douglas Kankel on the interaction of eye and brain development in Drosophila, by use of genetic mosaics. From 1977 to 1979 he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of David Hogness in the Biochemistry Department at the

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

School of Medicine, developing and using methods for the molecular cloning of genes in the early days of gene cloning and genomics. Since 1980 he has been a faculty member in the Division of Biology at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, where he served as division chair from 2000 to 2010, and where he is now George W. Beadle Professor of Biology. Between 2011 and 2013, he was appointed as inaugural director of the

Sainsbury Laboratory The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) is a research institute located at the Norwich Research Park (NRP) in Norwich, Norfolk, England, that carries out fundamental biological research and technology development on aspects of plant disease, plant dise ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and elected into a professorship in the university, and a professorial fellow at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, while on leave from the California Institute of Technology. Meyerowitz was a ''

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (the taxonomic order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly" or "pomace fly". Starting with Ch ...

'' expert before he became a pioneer of ''

Arabidopsis thaliana ''Arabidopsis thaliana'', the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small flowering plant native to Eurasia and Africa. ''A. thaliana'' is considered a weed; it is found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land. A winter a ...

'' research. Dr. Meyerowitz is well known for his contributions on the genetic and molecular basis of plant hormone reception, and on the molecular mechanisms of pattern formation during flower and shoot apical

meristem The meristem is a type of tissue found in plants. It consists of undifferentiated cells (meristematic cells) capable of cell division. Cells in the meristem can develop into all the other tissues and organs that occur in plants. These cells conti ...

development. More recently, he has turned his attention to physical models of shoot morphogenesis. Many leaders in plant biology trained in his laboratory, including Xuemei Chen, Steven E. Jacobsen, Martin F. Yanofsky, John L. Bowman, and

Detlef Weigel Detlef Weigel (born 1961 in Lower Saxony, Germany) is a German American scientist working at the interface of developmental and evolutionary biology. Education Weigel was an undergraduate in biology and chemistry at the universities of Bielefel ...

. Meyerowitz is a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

(1991), the U.S.

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(1995), and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

(1998), and is a foreign member of the French

Académie des Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the ...

(2002) and the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

(2004). Among the awards he has received are the

Genetics Society of America The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is a scholarly membership society of more than 5,500 genetics researchers and educators, established in 1931. The Society was formed from the reorganization of the Joint Genetics Sections of the American Soc ...

Medal in 1996, the

International Prize The Fyssen Foundation (French: Fondation Fyssen) is a French charitable organization that was established and endowed in 1979 by H. Fyssen. The aim of the foundation is to stimulate research into the processes underlying and leading to cognition, i ...

for Biology from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 1997, the

Richard Lounsbery Award The Richard Lounsbery Award is given to American and French scientists, 45 years or younger, in recognition of "extraordinary scientific achievement in biology and medicine." The Award alternates between French and American scientists, and is aw ...

from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1999, the

Wilbur Cross Medal The Wilbur Cross Medal, or Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal for Alumni Achievement, is an award by the Yale University Graduate School Alumni Association to recognize "...distinguished achievements in scholarship, teaching, academic administration, and p ...

of Yale University in 2001, the

Harrison Prize The International Society of Developmental Biologists (ISDB), formerly the Institut Internationale d'Embryologie (IIE), is a non-profit scientific association promoting developmental biology. The society holds an international Congress every four y ...

of the

International Society of Developmental Biologists The International Society of Developmental Biologists (ISDB), formerly the Institut Internationale d'Embryologie (IIE), is a non-profit scientific association promoting developmental biology. The society holds an international Congress every four ...

in 2005 and the

Balzan Prize The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the br ...

for "Plant Molecular Genetics" in 2006 (with

Chris R. Somerville Christopher Roland Somerville is a Canadian-American biologist known as a pioneer of ''Arabidopsis thaliana'' research. Somerville is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and a Program Officer at the Open Philanthr ...

). He is a member of the editorial board of eight leading journals in genetics, genomics, and developmental biology, and has served as president of the International Society for Plant Molecular Biology (1995–1997), the Genetics Society of America (1999) and the Society for Developmental Biology (2005–2006).

ABC model of flower development The ABC model of flower development is a scientific model of the process by which flowering plants produce a pattern of gene expression in meristems that leads to the appearance of an organ oriented towards sexual reproduction, a flower. There ...

History of research on Arabidopsis thaliana ''Arabidopsis thaliana'' is a first class model organism and the single most important species for fundamental research in plant molecular genetics. ''A. thaliana'' was the first plant for which a high-quality reference genome sequence was determin ...

References

External links

Photo
Elliot Meyerowitz's iBiology Seminars: "Why we Need to Understand Plant Development?"
(2015)
Google scholar profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyerowitz, Elliot 1951 births Foreign Members of the Royal Society Jewish American scientists Living people Richard-Lounsbery Award laureates Members of the French Academy of Sciences Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge California Institute of Technology faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 21st-century American biologists 21st-century American Jews

Career

Related pages

References

External links