Judith Kimble is a Henry Vilas Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Medical Genetics and Cell and Regenerative Biology at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison and Investigator with the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...
(HHMI). Kimble’s research focuses on the molecular regulation of animal development.
Education and training
Judith Kimble received her Bachelor's degree in biomedical sciences from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1971. She originally intended to become a physician. However, whilst in her last year as an undergraduate, she took a temporary job at the University of Copenhagen Medical School, she taught medical students about the structure and function of human organs, which, combined with her undergraduate studies in human embryology, sparked an interest in the "basic problems in animal development."
She began her graduate studies in 1974 at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. There, she worked with molecular biologist David Hirsh who was studying the model organism ''
Caenorhabditis elegans
''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''rhabditis'' (ro ...
''. Kimble then moved to the
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, where she spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow working with Sir
John Sulston on the control of
organogenesis. During the course of her work, Kimble found a special somatic cell at the tip of the gonad which tells nearby germ cells - reproductive cells - how to divide. When she destroyed the distal tip cell, germ cells stopped dividing. When she moved the somatic cell to a different place, germ cells started dividing in that new location. This was the first time a single cell with such an oversight function had been identified.
Early career
Kimble moved to the
University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1983 where she took up an assistant professorship position. Discovery of the distal tip cell gave her the means of exploring the control of germline stem cells. She then began to examine the genetic and molecular mechanisms responsible for germline stem cells and the processes by which germ cells develop into sperm or egg cells.
Later work
Kimble's more recent work has focused on sexual dimorphism in order to understand how organs with different shapes, sizes and tissues can be made from the same starting cells.
Achievements
Kimble has published more than 150 scientific articles
and is listed on two US-issued patents. She has trained more than 30 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, including
Tim Schedl, and
Julie Ahringer
Julie Ann Ahringer is an American/British Professor of Genetics and Genomics, Director of the Gurdon Institute and a member of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. She leads a research lab investigating the control of g ...
. She was President of 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 ...
for 2000.
She was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995
and the
American Philosophical Society in 2002. She was an investigator with the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...
from 1994–2019 and a member of 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 ...
.
She served on the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science (2012–2014) and as a chair of the committee in 2015.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimble, Judith
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of Colorado alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
American women biochemists
Living people
Howard Hughes Medical Investigators
Year of birth missing (living people)
American women academics
Members of the American Philosophical Society
21st-century American women