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Nature,
2002]
A humble nematode has wormed its way into the affection of the scientific community and helped to secure this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The award goes to three biologists whose work on the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans has yielded insights and spin-offs in such diverse fields as cancer research and modern
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Genetics,
2014]
THE Genetics Society of America's Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal is awarded to an individual GSA member for lifetime achievement in the field of genetics. The 2014 recipient is Frederick Ausubel, whose 40-year career has centered on host-microbe interactions and host innate immunity. He is widely recognized as a key scientist responsible for establishing the modern postrecombinant DNA field of host-microbe interactions using simple nonvertebrate hosts. He has used genetic approaches to conduct pioneering work that spawned six related areas of research: the evolution and regulation of Rhizobium genes involved in symbiotic nitrogen fixation; the regulation of Rhizobium genes by two-component regulatory systems involving histidine kinases; the establishment of Arabidopsis thaliana as a worldwide model system; the identification of a large family of plant disease resistance genes; the identification of so-called multi-host bacterial pathogens; and the demonstration that Caenorhabditis elegans has an evolutionarily conserved innate immune system that shares features of both plant and mammalian immunity.
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Hist Philos Life Sci,
2000]
The transformation of embryology to developmental biology has been linked to the introduction of experimental approaches from molecular genetics to the study of development. This paper pursues this theme by analyzing the tools molecular biologists, moving from phage and bacterial genetics to the study of development in higher organisms, brought to their new field of investigations. The paper focuses on Sydney Brenner's move from molecular genetics to developmental biology. His attempt to turn the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans into a new tool for the study of development included a vast and ever expanding mapping program. Worm workers themselves did not distinguish sharply between mapping on the cellular, chromosomal or molecular level. Mapping, the paper argues, or more generally 'analytical/comparative' next to 'experimentalist' approaches (Pickstone) were not only part and parcel of Brenner's strategy to 'molecularize' the study of development, but also played a crucial role in 'classical' molecular biology.
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Science,
2002]
The nematode worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans is not much to look at. Just a millimeter long and transparent to boot, it is almost invisible to the naked eye. But in biological research the tiny worm looms large, providing a model system for studying everything from embryonic development to aging. Now, three researchers who pioneered the use of C. elegans as a model organism have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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[
Genetics,
2015]
Ellsworth Dougherty (1921-1965) was a man of impressive intellectual dimensions and interests; in a relatively short career he contributed enormously as researcher and scholar to the biological knowledge base for selection of Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism in neurobiology, genetics, and molecular biology. He helped guide the choice of strains that were eventually used, and, in particular, he developed the methodology and understanding for the nutrition and axenic culture of nematodes and other organisms. Dougherty insisted upon a concise terminology for culture techniques and coined descriptive neologisms that were justified by their linguistic roots. Among other contributions, he refined the classification system for the Protista.
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Clin Med,
2003]
The recent award of a Nobel Prize to Sydney Brenner crowns an astonishingly distinguished scientific career. He must have come very close to winning it several times in the past. A colleague described him as 'a visionary who sees further into the future than anyone'. This is borne out by his decision - made 40 years ago - to study a one-millimetre long worm in detail to define the, biochemical and genetic control of its development and differentiation. The impact of these studies has been so profound, with a significant bearing on human physiology and disease, that over 400 laboratories worldwide have now adopted the worm as a research tool. In this article, a brief outline is given of his work on the worm and of some of the highlights of his brilliant career.
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Genetics,
2002]
This article marks the 25th anniversary of a paper reporting the first sex-determination mutants to be found in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The isolation of these mutants initiated an extensive analysis of nematode sex determination and dosage compensation, carried out by a number of laboratories over the subsequent decades. As a result, the process of sex determination is now one of the most thoroughly understood parts of C. elegans development, in both genetic and molecular terms. It has also proved to have interesting repercussions on the study of sex determination in other organisms.
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Genetics,
2019]
The Genetics Society of America's (GSA) Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal honors researchers for lifetime achievement in genetics. The recipient of the 2018 Morgan Medal, Barbara J. Meyer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, is recognized for her career-long, groundbreaking investigations of how chromosome behaviors are controlled. Meyer's work has revealed mechanisms of sex determination and dosage compensation in <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i> that continue to serve as the foundation of diverse areas of study on chromosome structure and function today, nearly 40 years after she began her work on the topic.