Laura Landweber

Laura Landweber
Alma mater Princeton University A.B., Harvard University Ph.D.
Known for RNA mediated epigenetic control, unusual genome organisation, genome evolution, computational molecular biology, DNA computers
Awards

2001 - Tulip Award for DNA Computing, 2005, Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2008. Regional Award Winner Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists from The New York Academy of Sciences,

2012 - Guggenheim Fellow
Scientific career
Fields evolution of genomes, DNA computers, structure and function of unusual genomes in Oxytrichia and other organisms
Institutions Columbia University, Princeton University
Thesis "RNA editing and the evolution of mitochondrial DNA in kinetoplastid protozoa." (1993)

Laura Faye Landweber is an American evolutionary biologist. As of 2016, she is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of biological sciences at Columbia University. Previously, she was a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University. She specializes in RNA-mediated epigenetic inheritance and molecular evolution.

Education

Landweber received her AB in molecular biology, graduating summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1989. She received her MA and PhD from Harvard University in 1991 and 1993. Her doctoral dissertation was "RNA editing and the evolution of mitochondrial DNA in kinetoplastid protozoa."[1]

Research career

In 1994, Landweber became a faculty member of Princeton University at the age of 26.

In a 2000 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on biocomputers, Landweber solved chess's knights problem, where one determines how many non-attacking knights can be placed on a chessboard, using a test tube of RNA,[2] a breakthrough in DNA computing.

Laura Landweber has also studied the evolution of the genetic code[3] and the scrambled genomes of ciliates such as Oxytricha.[4] Her laboratory has supported the notion that the code was no accident but arose from affinities between the nucleic acid codons and their cognate amino acids.[3] Her studies of the massive rearrangements of the genome in the micronucleus of Oxytricha showed an unsuspected role for non-coding RNA in directing the process epigenetically.[5]

Publications

Books

  • DNA Based Computers II (1998), Landweber, L. and Baum, E., eds, American Mathematicsl Society
  • Genetics and the Extinction of Species: DNA and the Conservation of Biodiversity (1999), Landweber, L. F. and Dobson, A. P., eds, Princeton University Press
  • Evolution as Computation (2003), Landweber, L. F. and Winfree, E., eds, Springer Verlag[6][1]

Notable Journal publications

  • Goldman, A. D; Landweber, L. F (2016). "What is a Genome?". PLOS Genetics. 12 (7): e1006181. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1006181. PMC 4956268. PMID 27442251.

Awards and honors

Personal life

Laura Landweber is married to physicist Steven Gubser and they have two daughters.[12]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Laura Landweber" (PDF). Princeton University. 19 January 2016. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
  2. ↑ Hopkin, Karen (November 1, 2006). "The Fast Track to Success". The Scientist.
  3. 1 2 Knight, Robin D; Landweber, Laura F (June 2000). "The Early Evolution of the Genetic Code". Cell. 101 (6): 569–572. doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(00)80866-1.
  4. ↑ Landweber, LF (19 October 2007). "Genetics. Why genomes in pieces?". Science. 318 (5849): 405–7. doi:10.1126/science.1150280. PMID 17947572.
  5. ↑ Nowacki, M; Vijayan, V; Zhou, Y; Schotanus, K; Doak, TG; Landweber, LF (10 January 2008). "RNA-mediated epigenetic programming of a genome-rearrangement pathway". Nature. 451 (7175): 153–8. doi:10.1038/nature06452. PMC 2647009. PMID 18046331.
  6. ↑ "The Landweber Lab: Publications". Princeton University. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
  7. ↑ "Laura F. Landweber". Sigma Xi. Retrieved 27 November 2015.
  8. ↑ "List of Award Winners". International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
  9. ↑ "AAAS Fellows". AAAS. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
  10. ↑ "Laura Landweber". Blavatnik Awards. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
  11. ↑ "Laura Landweber". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
  12. ↑ Abigail Jeffries (2008) “Ingenious, Innovative, and Interdisciplinary” The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine:11-18, Autumn, 2008. www.nyas.org.


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