James A. Birchler is an American biologist who is currently Curators' Professor at

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

where he studies gene dosage, polyploidy, and cytogenetics in both

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

and

drosophila ''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species ...

. In 2002 he was named a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. and in 2011 he was elected to the

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 ...

. In 2017 he was named the SEC Professor of the Year.

Early life and education

Birchler was born on a farm near

Red Bud, Illinois Red Bud is a city in Randolph County, Illinois, in the United States. The population was 3,804 at the 2020 census. It is the home of thRed Bud campusof Southwestern Illinois College. Geography Red Bud is located at . According to the 2010 cen ...

. He attended Eastern Illinois University where he initially majored in education and was mentored by ethnobotanist Charles Arzeni. After completing his degree at EIU in 1972, ultimately majoring in biology with a minor in zoology, he moved to Indiana University where he studied maize dosage effects using

B chromosome In addition to the normal karyotype, wild populations of many animal, plant, and fungi species contain B chromosomes (also known as supernumerary, accessory, (conditionally-)dispensable, or lineage-specific chromosomes). By definition, these chr ...

s with Drew Schwartz, graduating in 1977. Between 1978 and 1985 he worked as a postdoc studying gene dosage mechanisms in fruit flies, first at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...

with Ed Grell, and then at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

with Kenneth Paigen. In 1985 he was hired as an assistant professor at Harvard University, and in 1991 he moved to the University of Missouri.

Research

Birchler is known for his contributions to the study of gene dosage, dosage compensation, and gene balance using both

(''Zea mays'') and fruit flies (

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 ...

) as model organisms. He is also known for his lab's contributions to maize

karyotyping A karyotype is the general appearance of the complete set of metaphase chromosomes in the cells of a species or in an individual organism, mainly including their sizes, numbers, and shapes. Karyotyping is the process by which a karyotype is disce ...

by "

chromosome painting Fluorescence ''in situ'' hybridization (FISH) is a molecular cytogenetic technique that uses fluorescent probes that bind to only particular parts of a nucleic acid sequence with a high degree of sequence complementarity. It was developed ...

" or

fluorescence in situ hybridization Fluorescence ''in situ'' hybridization (FISH) is a molecular cytogenetic technique that uses fluorescent probes that bind to only particular parts of a nucleic acid sequence with a high degree of sequence complementarity. It was developed b ...

. Birchler and his lab have also leveraged this tool and maize B-A

chromosomal translocation In genetics, chromosome translocation is a phenomenon that results in unusual rearrangement of chromosomes. This includes balanced and unbalanced translocation, with two main types: reciprocal-, and Robertsonian translocation. Reciprocal translo ...

s to study the function and inactivation of

centromere The centromere links a pair of sister chromatids together during cell division. This constricted region of chromosome connects the sister chromatids, creating a short arm (p) and a long arm (q) on the chromatids. During mitosis, spindle fibers a ...

s. Birchler's lab also developed the first engineered

minichromosome A minichromosome is a small chromatin-like structure resembling a chromosome and consisting of centromeres, telomeres and replication origins but little additional genetic material. They replicate autonomously in the cell during cellular division. ...

s in plants, by using

telomere A telomere (; ) is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes. Although there are different architectures, telomeres, in a broad sense, are a widespread genetic feature mos ...

repeat sequences to truncate

s in

. James A. Birchler also developed Fast-Flowering Mini-Maize as a small, rapid-cycling model for maize.

Recognition

* 2002 Fellow of the

. * 2011 Member of the

. * 2014 Fellow of the

National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 2010. ...

, * 2014 Einstein Professor of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...

. * 2017 SEC Professor of the Year. * 2020 McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies

External links

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Indiana University alumni Eastern Illinois University alumni University of Missouri faculty 21st-century American biologists American geneticists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science {{US-biologist-stub