Ottoline Leyser

Ottoline Leyser's PhD work involved the analysis of meristem mutants of Arabidopsis, under the supervision of Ian Furner in the Genetics Department at Cambridge University. See then spent three years at Indiana University studying auxin signalling in the lab of Mark Estelle, eventfully punctuated by the birth of her two children. After a brief spell back in Cambridge, she moved to the University of York where she established a research programme combining her interests in meristems and hormone signalling to study apical dominance, focussing on the role of auxin in the suppression of lateral branching. This has involved a continued interest in auxin signal transduction as well as in the action of a novel hormone, which interacts with auxin to control shoot branching. In Arabidopsis, this new hormone is dependent on the MAX genes for its synthesis and action, and the interactions between auxin and the MAX-dependent hormone in apical dominance is a major focus of Ottoline's lab.

This page last modified on February 19, 2006