Liam Dolan One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: is the

Sherardian Professor of Botany The Sherardian Chair of Botany is a professorship at the University of Oxford that was established in 1734. It was created following an endowment by William Sherard on his death in 1728. In his will, Sherard stipulated that the first holder of th ...

in the Department of Biology at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Education

Dolan was educated at

University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 33,284 student ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

where he was awarded a PhD in 1991 for

genetic analysis Genetic analysis is the overall process of studying and researching in fields of science that involve genetics and molecular biology. There are a number of applications that are developed from this research, and these are also considered parts of ...

of leaf development in the cotton plant ''

Gossypium barbadense ''Gossypium barbadense'' (''gos-SIP-pee-um bar-ba-DEN-see'') is one of several species of cotton. It is in the mallow family. It has been cultivated since antiquity, but has been especially prized since a form with particularly long fibers was ...

'' supervised by Scott Poethig.

Career and research

Following his PhD, Dolan spent three years doing

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

at the

John Innes Centre The John Innes Centre (JIC), located in Norwich, Norfolk, England, is an independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science founded in 1910. It is a registered charity (No 223852) grant-aided by the Biotechnology and ...

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

. After 13 years as an independent project leader in Norwich, Dolan moved to

Oxford 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 ...

as the

in 2009. Dolan's research aims to define genetic mechanisms that control the development of plants and determine how these mechanisms have changed since plants colonised the land 500 million years ago. Dolan's research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the

Natural Environment Research Council The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences. History NERC began in 1965 when several environmental (mainly geog ...

(NERC). Dolan has made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the development and

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

of land plant rooting systems. He was the first to define the precise cellular

body plan A body plan, ( ), or ground plan is a set of morphological features common to many members of a phylum of animals. The vertebrates share one body plan, while invertebrates have many. This term, usually applied to animals, envisages a "blueprin ...

of the '' Arabidopsis'' root and discovered the

molecular genetic Molecular genetics is a sub-field of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the ...

mechanism governing

root hair Root hair, or absorbent hairs, are outgrowths of epidermal cells, specialized cells at the tip of a plant root. They are lateral extensions of a single cell and are only rarely branched. They are found in the region of maturation, of the root. Root ...

cell differentiation. He demonstrated that this mechanism is ancient and was the first to discover the mechanism that controlled the development of the earliest land plant rooting systems that caused dramatic climate change over 400 million years ago. These pivotal discoveries illuminate our understanding of the interrelationships between the development of plants, their evolution and the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

System. With Alison Mary Smith,

George Coupland George Michael Coupland FRS (born 20 December 1959, in Dumfries) is a Scottish plant scientist, and Research Scientist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. Education Coupland earned a First Class Honours from U ...

, Nicholas Harberd, Jonathan D. G. Jones, Cathie Martin, Robert Sablowski and Abigail Amey he is a co-author of the textbook ''Plant Biology''.

Awards and honours

Dolan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014. Dolan was elected a member of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) in 2009, and was awarded the President's Medal of the

Society for Experimental Biology The Society for Experimental Biology is a learned society for animal, cell and plant biologists. It was founded in 1923 at Birkbeck College to "promote the art and science of experimental biology in all its branches". It aims to demonstrate the i ...

(SEB) in 2001.

References

Fellows of the Royal Society Living people Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Sherardian Professors of Botany Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Alumni of University College Dublin University of Pennsylvania alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-scientist-stub