Profile: Janet Rossant
First in the profiles series. A researcher from the
University of Toronto. She studies stem cells and development.
For the first installment in the celebrity
scientist profiles, I decided to head back up north, to Canada. This is the
beautiful country where I did my PhD, and they are not sufficiently
recognized.
Biography [from ISI Highly Cited]
Janet Rossant
Born: UK
Citizenship: Canada, UK
FRS, FRSC
PhD: Cambridge University, 1976 in Mammalian development
BA: Oxford in Zoology
Image source: CIHR
Career Path:
Postdoc: Oxford (1975-1977)
Assist. Prof.: Brock University, Biological Sciences (1977-1981)
Assoc. Prof.: Brock University, Biological Sciences (1981-1985)
Adjunct Prof.: McMaster University, Pathology (1981-1985)
Assoc. Prof.: University of Toronto, Medical Genetics (1985-1988)
Senior Investigator: Samuel Lunenefeld Research Institute (1985-Present)
Prof.: University of Toronto, Molecular and Medical Genetics (1988-Present)
Joint Head: Samuel Lunenefeld Research Institute, Program in Development and Fetal Health (1994-2002)
Prof.: University of Toronto, Obstetrics and Gynecology (1995-Present)
University Prof.: University of Toronto (2001-Present)
She has a full armoire of awards.
Here's her research description from the ISI Highly Cited page:
My research interests centre on understanding the genetic control of normal and abnormal development in the early mouse embryo using both cellular and genetic manipulation techniques. Recently, my research has moved in two new directions. First, stem cell research, with the discovery of a novel placental stem cell type, the trophoblast stem cell. Second, genome-wide functional genomics. I direct the Centre for Modelling Human Disease in Toronto, which is undertaking genome-wide mutagenesis in mice to develop new mouse models of human disease.
The unparalleled CBC Radio program Quirks and Quarks (which we will be linking to habitually) had Dr. Rossant on the show December 1, 2001 following the announcement by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) that they had succeeded in cloning a human embryo. I know that is a little out of date given the recent work by the Korean group, but it's nice if you're just getting into stem cells (intersections, right?).
Dr. Rossant's most cited paper is called "Failure of blood-island formation and vasculogenesis in Flk-1 deficient mice" (F. Shalaby, et al, Nature, 376 (1995) 62-66). 1353 citations.
This paper looks at what happens when you generate mice that lack the gene encoding a protein necessary for the formation of blood vessels. The receptor, tyrosine kinase Flk-1 binds vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). You can read more about this receptor ligand pair here. Dr. Rossant's group found that the mice lacking the gene were unable to make blood vessels and the ingredients necessary for haematopoiesis (also hematopoiesis)—making blood cells—were also greatly reduced. The method they used to make these mice is known as homologous recombination.
The x-ray structure of the Flt-1/VEGF complex is available on from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) under the code 1FLT.
According to this blurb on the website for the International Vascular Biology Meeting:
...[H]er research has moved to two new directions. First, stem cell research, with her discovery of a novel placental stem cell type, the trophoblast stem cell and second, genome-wide functional genomics. She directs the Centre for Modeling Human Disease in Toronto, which is undertaking genome-wide mutagenesis in mice to develop new mouse models of human disease. Her work has had major influences in developmental biology, stem cells and cell lineage.
...Dr. Rossant has been a pioneer in the use of chimeric mouse embryos, embryonic stem cells, in situ markers and lineage specific ablation strategies to effectively study developmental processes and analyze mutants. Her laboratory was first to demonstrate that murine embryonic stem cells can alone give rise to an intact mouse.
So, that's a nice intro to a very successful scientist, and I hope you find enough links to things you don't know much about—I had no idea what half these words meant before putting together this post. That's a really big problem with biology from a physical science point of view: it's so much vocabulary and not all of it can be derived from having a good handle on etymology. Fortunately, Google solves almost all the problems of translation.
Finally, can stem cells be any hotter? They were even debated during the presidential election.
Biography [from ISI Highly Cited]
Janet Rossant
Born: UK
Citizenship: Canada, UK
FRS, FRSC
PhD: Cambridge University, 1976 in Mammalian development
BA: Oxford in Zoology
Image source: CIHR
Career Path:
Postdoc: Oxford (1975-1977)
Assist. Prof.: Brock University, Biological Sciences (1977-1981)
Assoc. Prof.: Brock University, Biological Sciences (1981-1985)
Adjunct Prof.: McMaster University, Pathology (1981-1985)
Assoc. Prof.: University of Toronto, Medical Genetics (1985-1988)
Senior Investigator: Samuel Lunenefeld Research Institute (1985-Present)
Prof.: University of Toronto, Molecular and Medical Genetics (1988-Present)
Joint Head: Samuel Lunenefeld Research Institute, Program in Development and Fetal Health (1994-2002)
Prof.: University of Toronto, Obstetrics and Gynecology (1995-Present)
University Prof.: University of Toronto (2001-Present)
She has a full armoire of awards.
Here's her research description from the ISI Highly Cited page:
My research interests centre on understanding the genetic control of normal and abnormal development in the early mouse embryo using both cellular and genetic manipulation techniques. Recently, my research has moved in two new directions. First, stem cell research, with the discovery of a novel placental stem cell type, the trophoblast stem cell. Second, genome-wide functional genomics. I direct the Centre for Modelling Human Disease in Toronto, which is undertaking genome-wide mutagenesis in mice to develop new mouse models of human disease.
The unparalleled CBC Radio program Quirks and Quarks (which we will be linking to habitually) had Dr. Rossant on the show December 1, 2001 following the announcement by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) that they had succeeded in cloning a human embryo. I know that is a little out of date given the recent work by the Korean group, but it's nice if you're just getting into stem cells (intersections, right?).
Dr. Rossant's most cited paper is called "Failure of blood-island formation and vasculogenesis in Flk-1 deficient mice" (F. Shalaby, et al, Nature, 376 (1995) 62-66). 1353 citations.
This paper looks at what happens when you generate mice that lack the gene encoding a protein necessary for the formation of blood vessels. The receptor, tyrosine kinase Flk-1 binds vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). You can read more about this receptor ligand pair here. Dr. Rossant's group found that the mice lacking the gene were unable to make blood vessels and the ingredients necessary for haematopoiesis (also hematopoiesis)—making blood cells—were also greatly reduced. The method they used to make these mice is known as homologous recombination.
The x-ray structure of the Flt-1/VEGF complex is available on from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) under the code 1FLT.
According to this blurb on the website for the International Vascular Biology Meeting:
...[H]er research has moved to two new directions. First, stem cell research, with her discovery of a novel placental stem cell type, the trophoblast stem cell and second, genome-wide functional genomics. She directs the Centre for Modeling Human Disease in Toronto, which is undertaking genome-wide mutagenesis in mice to develop new mouse models of human disease. Her work has had major influences in developmental biology, stem cells and cell lineage.
...Dr. Rossant has been a pioneer in the use of chimeric mouse embryos, embryonic stem cells, in situ markers and lineage specific ablation strategies to effectively study developmental processes and analyze mutants. Her laboratory was first to demonstrate that murine embryonic stem cells can alone give rise to an intact mouse.
So, that's a nice intro to a very successful scientist, and I hope you find enough links to things you don't know much about—I had no idea what half these words meant before putting together this post. That's a really big problem with biology from a physical science point of view: it's so much vocabulary and not all of it can be derived from having a good handle on etymology. Fortunately, Google solves almost all the problems of translation.
Finally, can stem cells be any hotter? They were even debated during the presidential election.
Posted: Tue - November 16, 2004 at 12:36 PM |
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Published On: Jul 18, 2005 04:17 PM
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