The Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award, funded by the Gruber Foundation and administered by the Genetics Society of America, supports women in the first one to three years of an independent faculty position doing genetics research in human and non-human mammals and in non-mammalian organisms. This award is only granted every three years; three women receive $75,000 each, over a three-year period ($25,000 per year). 

In 2022, three recipients were recognized for their scientific creativity, originality, and leadership in making new scientific discoveries: Aude Bernheim, PhD, of Pasteur Institute; Kara McKinley, PhD, of Harvard University; and Viviane Slon, PhD, of Tel Aviv University. We chatted with them to see how the award impacted their research journeys and careers and to hear about their experiences as women in science and why these types of awards are essential. 

Aude Bernheim

Aude is a geneticist interested in how bacteria fight off their viruses and how these immune mechanisms are conserved across domains of life. She leads a lab at the Pasteur Institute where she employs a wide range of disciplines mixing bioinformatics and experimental approaches including genomics, phylogenetics, bacterial genetics, phase biology, and more to research these topics. 

Having taken an unconventional path to becoming a biologist, studying not only the life sciences but economics and public policy, as described in the blog post published in 2022, Aude is no stranger to trying new things and taking chances. Her curiosity ultimately led her to heading a lab focused on exploring the diversity of anti-phage systems at different scales, from molecular mechanisms to large-scale evolutionary trends. Receiving the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award gave her the resources, recognition, and confidence to continue this work. She found the award a great boost for her career—the international recognition underscored the quality of her work, which allowed her to obtain additional funding to support her lab’s research and to establish herself as an expert on a national and international scale. True to her curious nature and passion for learning, Aude explained, “The funding allowed me to start risky projects that turned into major lines of research in the lab.” The lab used the funds to support activities like lab retreats and conferences that brought them closer together, which was key for improving communication and building trust, essential to conducting interdisciplinary research. 

On being a woman in the field, Aude shared, “Women were in the past, and still are, less credited for their science than men.” She explained that this and other obstacles systematically exclude women from scientific areas of research like genetics, but made a case for increasing diversity in the field saying, “Diversity of scientists is a major driver of scientific progress, as it is an incredible source of creativity and innovation. As such, we urgently need to support women to promote diversity.” 

Kara McKinley

Kara is an Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University and a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her lab studies the biology of menstruation. She is also the founder of Leading Edge, which looks to improve gender diversity in biomedical research faculty. 

During her time studying cell division processes using live-cell microscopy and genetics and biochemistry techniques at the Whitehead Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kara fell in love with microscopy. When she was able to start her own lab, she wanted to focus on that drive and was very excited, but also felt great uncertainty–Kara recalled, “During the first few years, I was constantly swinging between: ‘I get to pursue the science of my dreams!’ and ‘What if I can’t deliver?’” Like Aude, Kara wanted to take risks to do great research, and she feels this award allowed her to do so, “It gave me a boost to take risks and push forward bravely. Now we really are pursuing science beyond my wildest dreams!” 

Throughout her career, but especially since founding Leading Edge, Kara has spent time with many extraordinary scientists who are women and other marginalized genders. She said, “Scientific innovation and the scientific ecosystem are better with them in it.” while stressing the need to do all we can to build a scientific infrastructure and community that is worthy of these talented individuals who are currently rising through PhD and postdoc ranks. 

Viviane Slon

Viviane is the head of the Historical and Prehistorical Genetics Laboratory at the Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, at Tel Aviv University. 

In the 2022 profile, Viviane shared that her interest in prehistoric humans actually started in early childhood. Having a similar and essential quality to Aude—deep curiosity—and being born in a family of readers, Viviane felt the need to go “beyond books” and learn through hands-on experience, opting to conduct physical anthropology research and actively participating in excavations. Being awarded the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award allowed her to become an independent researcher and do the type of research that she is truly passionate about. “The recognition and financial support provided gave me the confidence to pursue a research path that has been a longstanding passion of mine–retracing the genetic history of the southern Levant through ancient DNA,” she explained. Viviane added that this type of research is challenging due to the difficulty of preserving ancient DNA in warm climates, which requires methodological advancements and extensive fieldwork. For this, you need teamwork, and this award allowed her to assemble a dedicated research group and establish fruitful collaborations nationally and internationally. “This support has been instrumental in advancing our research efforts and laying the groundwork for future discoveries,” she said as she expressed her gratitude. 

Further expounding on the importance of collaboration and championing women in science, like Kara, Viviane added that “supporting the development of women scientists in genetics is crucial because in addition to challenges inherent to an academic career, women often face additional societal pressures and obstacles.” Programs and awards like this one are key to building the confidence young women need to navigate the field and advance their careers. Over the past years, Viviane has felt incredibly fortunate to work with impressive and driven women scientists at all levels of their careers, as mentors, colleagues, and students. “The strength of women supporting, encouraging, and driving each other forward through challenges is a powerful force and, in my opinion, essential to nurture this network to ensure that future generations of women scientists can thrive,” she concluded. 

These three inspirational women in science used the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award to take risks in their careers, knowing that trying new things and innovating is what often produces groundbreaking discoveries. They also used the award to build a culture of inclusivity, to stress the importance of supporting brilliant and creative women in science, and to build each other up to continue paving the way for other women scientists to do the same. 

The Genetics Society of America (GSA) and The Gruber Foundation are delighted to announce that the 2022 recipients of the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award are Aude Bernheim, PhD, of INSERM; Kara McKinley, PhD, of Harvard University; and Viviane Slon, PhD, of Tel Aviv University.

Funded by The Gruber Foundation and administered by the GSA, the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award is granted once every three years to women who have conducted exceptional and creative research in the field of genetics and who have recently begun or are about to begin their first faculty-level positions. This year, for the first time, three winners have been selected instead of two; however, as in previous years, each awardee will receive a $75,000 award to be distributed over three years for research uses.

“The recipients are recognized for their scientific creativity, originality, and leadership in making significant new discoveries,” says Ruth Lehmann, PhD, Chair of the award selection committee, Professor of Biology at MIT, and Director of the Whitehead Institute. “The committee was impressed by the accomplishments of the exceptional number of outstanding applicants and the breadth of groundbreaking research conducted by women who are at the very start of promising careers.”

Aude Bernheim

Award recipient Bernheim took a somewhat unconventional path to becoming a biologist, studying not only the life sciences but also economics and public policy at the graduate level. Ultimately, captivated by bacteriophage—a class of viruses that infect bacteria—she chose to study microbiology for her PhD in the laboratories of Eduardo Rocha, PhD and David Bikard, PhD at the Pasteur Institute. Bernheim used bioinformatic and experimental approaches to research CRISPR–Cas systems, which are used by around 40% of bacterial species to defend against invading viruses and which have also gained fame for their genome editing applications. 

“Toward the end of my PhD, I wondered if maybe there were other types of immune systems that remained to be discovered in microbiology,” Bernheim says. “It took us so many years to discover the CRISPR-Cas systems, and they were there all along.” This curiosity led her to the laboratory of Rotem Sorek, PhD, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where she conducted her postdoctoral research on the discovery and characterization of anti-phage systems in bacteria. Collectively, this work formed the basis of Bernheim’s current research in her own group at INSERM, which focuses on exploring the diversity of anti-phage systems at different scales, from molecular mechanisms to large-scale evolutionary trends. “I have a strong focus on basic science, but always with an eye on how this can help on the applied side,” Bernheim says. Studying these antiviral defenses in bacteria may eventually contribute to medical advances, such as the discovery of new antiviral molecules and phage therapy for bacterial infections.

Kara McKinley

Like Bernheim, awardee McKinley didn’t always plan to study biology—in fact, she didn’t take the subject in high school. Instead, her interest was sparked as an undergraduate student at Princeton University when she began independent research on designed proteins in the laboratory of Michael Hecht, PhD. This interest led her to pursue doctoral training in the laboratory of Iain Cheeseman, PhD, of the Whitehead Institute and MIT, where she studied cell division processes using live-cell microscopy along with genetics and biochemistry techniques. “In that time I really fell in love with microscopy,” McKinley says of her years in graduate school. When it came time for her postdoctoral work to begin, she was keen to keep observing biology with her own eyes, but wanted to take her work in a new direction.

“What kinds of new things could we see if we looked in new places?” McKinley recalls wondering—a question that led her to begin studying biology in three dimensions using high-resolution live-cell imaging of miniature, lab-grown, organ-like biological structures called organoids, work she carried out in the laboratory of Ron Vale, PhD, at the University of California, San Francisco. Now, as an assistant professor starting her own laboratory at Harvard University, McKinley has set her sights on researching the understudied phenomenon that is menstruation, a topic she finds fascinating because of the human endometrium’s incredible capacity for self-renewal. “We tend to not get the same credit [for being able to regenerate] as, say, an axolotl, which can regrow its arm,” McKinley says. “But in many ways, this is a great example of human regeneration that happens over and over and over again.” This work may also help inform our understanding of disease states, such as endometriosis and endometrial cancers.

Viviane Slon

Slon’s interest in prehistoric humans dates back to her childhood. “I come from a family where people read a lot,” Slon says. “There’s always been an interest in history in the family, and I think I got interested in prehistory exactly because it’s beyond the books.” As an undergraduate student and then master’s degree student at Tel Aviv University, Slon conducted physical anthropology research and participated in excavations. Then, for her doctoral research in the laboratory of Svante Pääbo, PhD, at the Max Planck Institute, she had the opportunity to work on a variety of archaeological sites, including the remarkable Denisova Cave. There, she found the first direct evidence of interbreeding between two groups of ancient hominids: the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Slon also developed a method to study sediments from areas where ancient humans lived—even when no human remains can be found—enabling sequencing of ancient DNA from dirt.

After continuing her work on ancient hominids at the Max Planck Institute as a postdoctoral researcher, Slon has transitioned into tracing ancient human populations in Israel and the broader Levant in her laboratory at Tel Aviv University. Because the area has long been a nexus of migration connecting Africa, Europe, and Asia, there is often evidence of changes in tools and technology in the region, but it’s not always clear whether these differences mean new populations had moved in or out or whether only cultural exchanges had taken place. “Looking at their genomes could tell us something about who were the people living in the area at different time periods,” Slon says. “I’m also hoping we can learn more about how these people lived in the sense of their social structure.”

Honorable Mentions

In addition to the research of these three awardees, the committee is also pleased to highlight the outstanding scientific work of three scientists selected for honorable mentions:

• Margarida Cardoso-Moreira, PhD, of The Francis Crick Institute, for work on the origins of new genes and morphological innovations;
• Yvette Fisher, PhD, of the University of California, Berkeley, for work on how neural circuits implement the computations that underlie perception and behavior;
• and Dipti Nayak, PhD, of the University of California, Berkeley, for work on the physiology and evolution of methanogenic archaea and methylotrophic bacteria.

Selection Committee

Ruth Lehmann (Chair), Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Maria Barna, Stanford University, 2016 Rosalind Franklin Award Recipient

Mary Gehring, Whitehead Institute and MIT, 2013 Rosalind Franklin Award Recipient

Helen Hobbs, University of Texas, Southwestern

Valerie Horsley, Yale University, 2013 Rosalind Franklin Award Recipient

Mary-Claire King, University of Washington, Seattle

Susan Mango, University of Basel

Janet Rossant, Hospital for Sick Children

Amy Pasquinelli, University of California, San Diego, 2004 Rosalind Franklin Award Recipient

The Genetics Society of America (GSA) and The Gruber Foundation are pleased to announce Molly Schumer, PhD, of Stanford University; and Bérénice Benayoun, PhD, of the University of Southern California as the 2019 recipients of the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award.

Molly Schumer, PhD (Photo courtesy of Schumer)

Bérénice Benayoun, PhD,(Photo courtesy of the University of Southern California)

The Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award is funded by The Gruber Foundation and is awarded every three years to two women geneticists at the beginning of their independent research careers. Winners are selected by a committee appointed by GSA. The award recognizes outstanding genetics research in two categories: non-mammalian genetics and mammalian genetics, including human genetics. Each winner will receive a $75,000 award to be used for her research.

“The Rosalind Franklin Award recognizes the accomplishments of young women investigators on their path to discovery,” said Ruth Lehmann, PhD, Chair of the Rosalind Franklin Award committee and Professor and Department Chair in Cell Biology at New York University School of Medicine. “The committee was thrilled by the record number of highly qualified applicants, demonstrating great curiosity, creativity and fearlessness among the next generation of woman geneticists.”

Molly Schumer, the 2019 recipient in genetics of non-mammalian organisms, investigates how the evolution of genomes and species is affected by hybridization—a process that allows genes to move between species. Schumer earned her Bachelor’s degree at Reed College, where she became interested in studying evolution. During her PhD research at Princeton University with mentor Peter Andolfatto, PhD, Schumer developed genomic and computational tools to study hybridization in a new animal model system—two hybridizing species of swordtail fish. Postdoctoral research with 2007 Rosalind Franklin Award recipient Molly Przeworski, PhD, at Columbia University focused on the interplay between local recombination rate and selection on hybrids, and she continued this work with David Reich, PhD, at Harvard Medical School. Schumer’s research in swordtail fish demonstrated that even though hybridization is common, there are constraints on how freely different parts of the genome can move between species. Schumer is now working to understand the cause of those constraints.

Bérénice Benayoun, the 2019 recipient in human and mammalian genetics, researches how genomic regulation influences the aging process. Benayoun earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at École Normale Supérieure, in Paris, France. During her undergraduate studies she spent a summer at Northwestern University in the lab of Richard Morimoto, PhD, where her findings on transcription factors sparked her interest in aging. Benayoun’s PhD research at Paris Diderot-Paris 7 University with Reiner Veitia, PhD, focused on the role of a specific transcription factor in ovarian aging. As a postdoc at Stanford University with Anne Brunet, PhD, Benayoun helped develop a new vertebrate model for aging research, a short-lived fish called the African turquoise kilifish, along with the genetic tools to study it. Using those tools, she identified genes associated with life span differences. Recently Benayoun looked at epigenomic and transcriptomic changes across tissues in mice as they aged and found that there are predictable changes in genome regulation during aging. Benayoun’s current work focuses on identifying how age and interventions that extend life span (such as dietary changes) influence the transcriptome and epigenome, and to understand the influence of sex on these changes.

The committee also gives honorable mention to four additional outstanding candidates:

• Lauren O’Connell, PhD, of Stanford University, for developing poison frogs as a model system to understand the genetic and evolutionary basis of physiological and behavioral adaptations;
• Sarah Zanders, PhD, of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, for her work on the effects of genetic conflicts caused by “selfish genes” that do not promote the overall fitness of an organism;
• Kelley Harris, PhD, of the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; for her research on the evolution of mutagenesis in humans;
• and Jihye Yun, PhD, of the Baylor College of Medicine, for her research on how diet can influence epigenetics to promote cancer development.

Committee:

Ruth Lehmann, New York University School of Medicine, Chair

Maria Barna, Stanford University, 2016 Rosalind Franklin Award Winner

Mary Gehring, Whitehead Institute and MIT, 2013 Rosalind Franklin Award Winner

Mary Lou Guerinot, Dartmouth College

Valerie Horsley, Yale University, 2013 Rosalind Franklin Award Winner

Iiris Hovatta, University of Helsinki, 2010 Rosalind Franklin Award Winner

Mary-Claire King, University of Washington, Seattle

Susan Mango, University of Basel

Janet Rossant, Hospital for Sick Children

Amy Pasquinelli, University of California, San Diego, 2004 Rosalind Franklin Award Winner

Huda Zhogbi, Baylor College of Medicine

Award Presentation: The Awards will be presented by The Gruber Foundation at The Allied Genetics Conference, April 22–26, 2020 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.

GSA to nominate advisors to the Selection Advisory Board of the Gruber Genetics Prize

To promote the public awareness and recognition of recent achievements in the field of genetics, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) is pleased to announce a new collaboration with The Gruber Foundation to award the Gruber Genetics Prize.

This prize is presented annually to up to three scientists in recognition of groundbreaking contributions to genetics research. The award includes an unrestricted cash prize of USD $500,000. Prize recipients are selected by an international Selection Advisory Board composed of seven distinguished geneticists. In the new agreement, six of the seven will be nominated by GSA and the seventh, at-large member will be selected by these six nominees. The Genetics Prize will be presented at a GSA Conference or an event honoring the recipient; every fifth year it will be presented at the International Congress of Genetics.

GSA will continue its existing partnership with The Gruber Foundation to administer The Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award, a career development award for women geneticists funded by the foundation. The Award, which honors the critical contributions of Rosalind Franklin, is intended to inspire and support new generations of women in the field of genetics.

“Our community is thrilled to help The Gruber Foundation both recognize big achievements and foster new leaders in the field,” says GSA’s Executive Director Tracey DePellegrin.

“The Gruber Foundation is delighted to expand its longstanding collaboration with GSA,” says Sarah Hreha, executive director of The Gruber Foundation, “We benefit from the scientific expertise GSA generously provides, and appreciate that their dedication to the field extends to helping us honor the best work being done in genetics internationally.”

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Genes to Genomes asked Dr. Carolyn (Lindy) McBride (Princeton University), a recipient of the Rosalind Franklin Award for Young Investigators, to tell us about her research and what it means to receive the award. She was recognized for her Rosalind Franklin Award along with another recipient, Dr. Maria Barna, at the 2015 American Society of Human Genetics meeting in October.

It was a surprise and honor to receive the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award. I’m lucky enough to have been surrounded by female scientist role models since I was young, including my great-aunt, a chemist (now 98 years old), my physician-scientist mother, and my postdoc mentor Leslie Vosshall. But I know that this is not true for all young girls aspiring to be scientists today and that real barriers for women in science still exist. For this reason, I think it’s important to recognize the work of women scientists.

In my new laboratory at Princeton University, we take advantage of recent evolution in the dengue fever mosquito Aedes aegypti to understand how genes control behavior. I first became interested in this mosquito at the end of graduate school when a friend introduced me to a fascinating series of studies from the mid-1900s. Researchers investigating the outbreak of an unknown illness along the coast of East Africa in 1952 discovered homes infested by a ‘domestic’ form of Ae. aegypti . An ancestral ‘forest’ form was later found breeding in forests, just hundreds of meters away. The two forms were closely related and fully interfertile in the laboratory, yet remained distinct in the wild and showed striking divergence in behavior: Domestic females specialized in biting humans, readily entering homes, flying toward human odor, and laying their eggs in water-storage containers indoors. Forest females avoided homes, preferred the odor of non-human animals, and laid their eggs in tree holes outdoors. These behavioral differences translated into marked divergence in the capacity to spread human diseases, such as Chikungunya, the unknown illness from 1952, as well as yellow fever and dengue.

When first introduced to this literature, I was trained in evolutionary genetics but had become keenly interested in functional genetics and wanted to use evolution to make basic links between genes and behavior. This struck me as an excellent system in which to do that. Clearly the genomes of forest and domestic mosquitoes must contain key differences at loci that regulate host seeking, habitat preference, and oviposition, among other behaviors. We could try to map those differences and study how they alter the activity and/or structure of neural circuits. In a sense, instead of carrying out a traditional genetic screen, we let evolution perform the screen for us – sifting through hundreds of thousands of mutations over evolutionary time to find those that tweak behavior in an advantageous way. Moreover, in addition to providing basic insight in behavioral genetics, we might learn something that could help prevent domestic mosquitoes from spreading disease to humans.

I decided to give this approach a try as a postdoc with Leslie Vosshall at the Rockefeller University. Leslie was just starting to move from Drosophila research to mosquito research, and we decided that I would travel to East Africa to see if domestic and forest forms still coexisted there. I had previously spent a year studying birdsong in Tanzania, just across the border from Kenya, so this plan was not as far-fetched as it seems. We also had collaborators at the Kenya Medical Research Institute. We found that the two forms did still coexist and we were able to bring them into the lab, confirm divergence in preference for human versus animal odor, and characterize an odorant receptor that contributes to this difference. Remarkably, this receptor, AaegOr4, recognizes a component of human odor and both the gene expression level and protein binding ability of natural variants of AaegOr4 are correlated with preference.

In my own lab at Princeton, we are now working to understand exactly how the changes in AaegOr4 affect signaling and integration in central olfactory circuits to alter preference. We are also characterizing additional genes expressed in the antennae and brain which are linked to preference, and plan to investigate the molecular basis of some of the other fascinating behaviors that help domestic mosquitoes exploit human hosts and habitats. We hope to uncover novel genes, novel functions for known genes, and a more complete understanding of how genetic changes confer new properties to neural circuits underlying behavior.

We are grateful for the recognition and support that come with the Rosalind Franklin Award and will use it as inspiration to keep moving forward in the footsteps of the outstanding scientists, who happen to be women, who have preceded us.

Carolyn McBride, PhD (Photo courtesy of Dr. McBride)

Dr. McBride received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Williams College and her PhD in population biology from University of California, Davis. As a postdoc at Rockefeller University, Dr. McBride was instrumental in establishing the mosquito as a model system to understand the genetic basis of behavior. Dr. McBride’s current research demonstrates how genes control recently evolved behaviors that contribute to the spread of human disease by mosquitoes.

The views expressed in guest posts are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Genetics Society of America.

An artist’s rendition of a ribosome. Credit: C. BICKLE/SCIENCE

Genes to Genomes asked Dr. Maria Barna (Stanford University), a recipient of the Rosalind Franklin Award for Young Investigators, to tell us about her research and what it means to receive the award. She will be recognized for her Rosalind Franklin Award along with the other 2016 recipient, Dr. Carolyn McBride, at the 2015 American Society of Human Genetics meeting this week.

It is an incredible honor to be selected as the recipient of a 2016 Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award. I am so grateful to be receiving this prestigious award, and I hope to follow in the footsteps of all the amazing women scientists who have received it before me. This award will be extremely helpful in supporting our research as we delve deeply into an exciting, newly-discovered mechanistic program for controlling how the mammalian genome is converted into final effector proteins, which execute all of the decisions that a cell makes during its life. The central dogma of biology, which Rosalind Franklin was so instrumental in establishing, has for decades served as an explanation for the flow of genetic information within a biological system. In our current understanding of the “normal” flow of biological information from DNA to RNA to protein, the ribosome—the central protein synthesis machinery of the cell—decodes the genome with machine-like precision, serving as an integral but largely passive participant in the synthesis of effector proteins across all kingdoms of life (whether a cat, carp, cholera or Caesar).

There are millions of ribosomes situated in every cell’s cytoplasm, churning out the proteins essential for cellular life. To a large extent , the ribosome has been viewed as a backstage participant in translating the genetic code, despite being recognized as spectacular molecular machine. Our research has fundamentally changed this view by demonstrating that not all of the millions of ribosomes within each cell are the same, and that ribosome heterogeneity provides a novel means for diversity of the proteins that can be produced in specific cells, tissues, and organisms from the same DNA sequence. Collectively, we have termed this additional layer of gene regulation as a “ribocode,” which adds important diversity to how gene products can be converted into proteins in time and space.

I believe that this interesting discovery has been made possible through mouse genetics. By employing an unbiased forward genetic screen, we realized that the activity of core components of the ribosome machinery were unexpectedly tailored to execute highly specific developmental decisions and were “tuned” to translating specific subsets of key developmental mRNAs. My favorite example comes from a mouse mutant we first characterized which harbored a loss-of-function mutation in one of the 80 ribosomal proteins (RPs) that constitute the core of the mammalian ribosome, known as RPL38. It was extremely unexpected when we discovered that RPL38  was selectively required for the formation of the mammalian body plan. In Rpl38 mutant mice, the stereotyped arrangement of vertebral elements were altered in a profound way, including the formation of extra pairs of ribs growing out of vertebrae in the neck! This led to the realization that RPL38 can be considered a regulatory element, or “filter,” of the ribosome—one that is selectively required to convert a subset of critical genes into the proteins, including a key group of  Homeodomain transcription factors  that establish  the body plan.

Since I started as an Assistant Professor at Stanford, my laboratory has taken a highly genetic approach to deconstructing the impact of individual ribosome components on the translational code of gene expression in specific cell and tissue types. At present, we are creating one of the largest series of conditional knock-out mice for each of the 80 core RPs belonging to the mammalian ribosome. Our findings have uncovered distinct and striking tissue-specific phenotypes, which are evident upon conditional deletion of specific RPs, during eye development, facial patterning, limb development, and spermatogenesis, among many others. An additional outstanding question raised by our initial studies is the nature of regulatory elements in target mRNAs that interface with what we called “specialized ribosomes,” which may contain a unique RP composition and/or activity. Akin to a transcription factor binding site or micro-RNA seed sequence, how might ribosome-mediated control of gene regulation be encoded within the sequence and structure provided by the transcribed genome? We recently identified unique structured elements within the untranslated regions of transcripts that are recognized by specialized ribosomes. We are starting to understand the grammatical rules for how such elements guide the ribosome in decoding the genome with newfound specificity.  We anticipate that this ‘ribocode’ will be a vital  additional layer of gene regulation guiding cell specification, tissue patterning, mammalian development, and human disease—that  my laboratory hopes to study for decades to come.

I’m extremely excited by the recognition and support given to our work by the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award. This recognition is particularly meaningful to me, as my lab has embarked on work that was initially perceived as very provocative and potentially too risky. As with any research that breaks convention or dogma, my lab has worked tirelessly to explore largely uncharted areas of research into gene regulation. Our investigations have always been aided by the elegance and strength of mouse genetics, which has the power to overturn what we think is known and what is still left to be discovered. I’m particularly grateful for the extraordinary cadre of junior scientists in my lab that make this research possible and who, in many ways, follow the pioneering spirit for discovery embodied by Rosalind Franklin.

Dr. Barna received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from New York University and her PhD in molecular biology from Cornell University and Sloan-Kettering Institute. Her doctoral research focused on the genetic basis of limb development. Building on her post-doctoral research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Barna currently studies the ribosome molecular machine in her own laboratory at Stanford University.

The views expressed in guest posts are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Genetics Society of America.

Members of the GSA staff and leadership will be participating in the annual meeting of our sister society, the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). If you’ll be attending ASHG 2015 in Baltimore, please look out for us, including at the following events:

Exhibit Hall

GSA will be at Booth 2008 in the exhibit hall. Come by to learn about the Society or publishing in one of our peer-edited journals, GENETICS and G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics.

Invited session on model organisms

GSA President Jasper Rine and Past President Phil Hieter have organized an invited session on “Understanding Disease Pathogenesis: A Grand Challenge for Model Organisms.” This session will accent the current relevance of model organism studies for the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of human disease, and anticipate the future role of model organisms in human disease research.

Saturday, October 10
1:45 PM – 3:45 PM

Concurrent Invited Sessions II
83. Understanding Disease Pathogenesis: A Grand Challenge for Model Organisms

Room 318/321, Level 3, Convention Center

1:45 pm – Fruit fly/mouse: A fly approach to personalized cancer therapeutics. R. Cagan. Mount Sinai Hosp, New York.

2:15 pm – Fruit fly/mouse: Molecular genetics of tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. D. Pan. Johns Hopkins Univ Sch Med, Baltimore.

2:45 pm – Nematode worm: Nutritional regulatory networks. M. Walhout. U Mass Med Sch, Worcester.

3:15 pm – Yeast/zebrafish: Genetic models to determine gene function and a potential therapy for an inherited anemia. C. McMaster. Dalhousie Univ, Halifax, Canada.

Publications Workshop

GENETICS Editor-in-Chief Mark Johnston will be participating in the sold-out “Behind the Scenes: Publications Workshop.” Friday, October 9, 12:45 pm, Room 349.

Awards

Two GSA members will be honored with awards from ASHG:

• GSA member Huntington Willard will receive the ASHG Arno Motulsky–Barton Childs Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Education. Friday, October 9, 9:30 am, Hall F, Level 1.
• GSA member Leonid Kruglyak will receive ASHG’s Curt Stern Award, which recognizes genetics and genomics researchers who have made significant scientific contributions during the past decade. Friday, October 9, 10 am, Hall F, Level 1.

In addition, GSA member Carolyn McBride and Maria Barna will be formally honored with the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award. Funded by The Gruber Foundation and administered by GSA and ASHG, the award is presented to promising early-career women geneticists. Friday, October 9, 8:45 am, Fall F, Level 1H

Finally, Jennifer Doudna, who will be delivering a keynote address at The Allied Genetics Conference next year will be honored with the Gruber Genetics Prize. Doudna and co-recipient Emmanuelle Charpentier will receive a $500,000 cash award in recognition of their development of the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology.

• Presentation: Friday, October 9, 8:45 am, Hall F, Level 1
• Gruber Lecture: Friday, October 9, 1 pm, Hall F, Level 1

GSA is pleased to join with the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) and The Gruber Foundation to announce the recipients of the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award:

• Maria Barna, PhD, Assistant Professor of Genetics and of Developmental Biology, Stanford University
• Carolyn (Lindy) McBride, PhD, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University

The award, supported by The Gruber Foundation, is bestowed every three years to two women geneticists at the beginning of their independent research careers. Winners are selected by a joint committee appointed by GSA and ASHG from nominees around the world. The award recognizes outstanding genetics research in two categories: mammalian genetics (including human genetics) and non-mammalian genetics. Each winner will receive $75,000 to be used as she chooses for her research.

The committee also selected two additional outstanding candidates to be named as honorable mentions: Rachel Dutton, PhD (University of California, San Diego) and Elizabeth Murchison, PhD (University of Cambridge, UK).

The award will be presented on Friday, October 9, 2015, at the ASHG 2015 Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD.

Additional Information:

• “2016 Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Awards Announced,” September 1, 2015.