Sean B. Carroll

Sean B. Carroll
Professor Sean B Carroll sitting at his desk, holding a book, with lots of post-it notes glued everywhere.
Carroll in 2008
Born (1960-09-17) 17 September 1960
Toledo, Ohio
Residence Madison, Wisconsin and Bethesda, Maryland
Nationality American
Citizenship United States
Alma mater Washington University in St. Louis (B.S.), Tufts University (Ph.D.)
Awards Presidential Young Investigator Award
Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science
Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution
Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers
Shaw Scientist Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Scientific career
Fields Evolutionary developmental biology, Molecular Biology, Genetics
Institutions University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Colorado at Boulder
Doctoral advisor B. David Stollar
Other academic advisors Matthew P. Scott

Sean B. Carroll (born September 17, 1960) is an American evolutionary developmental biologist, author, educator and executive producer. He is the Allan Wilson Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His studies focus on the evolution of cis-regulatory elements in the regulation of gene expression in the context of biological development, using Drosophila as a model system. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of the American Philosophical Society (2007),[1] of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for Advancement of Science, as well as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Biography

Carroll was born in Toledo, Ohio. He has stated that, as a kid, he would flip over rocks looking for snakes, and at age 11 or 12, he started keeping snakes. This activity led him to notice the patterns on the snakes and wonder how those form. Carroll got his B.A. in Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, his Ph.D. in immunology from Tufts University and did post-doctoral work at the University of Colorado Boulder.[2]

Career

Carroll is at the forefront of a field known as evolutionary developmental biology (also known as "evo-devo"), studying how gene changes control the evolution of body parts and patterns. He is the Allan Wilson Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.[3]

In 1987, Carroll set up a laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison "focused on understanding how genes get used in different ways to generate the diversity of form that we see".[2] The Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology lists Carroll's interests as "Genetic control of body pattern in fruit flies, butterflies, and other animals".[4]

Carroll's team has shown, in a series of papers, how the activation of genes during the embryonic stages of the Drosophila fruit fly control the development of its wings, and has been searching for the butterfly's counterparts of these genes.[5]

In 1989, he received the Shaw Scientist Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.[6]

In 2006, Carroll was interviewed by PBS as part of the NOVA documentary "The Family That Walks on All Fours",[7] about a family in Turkey that has members who walk on their hands and feet. In this interview, he discusses the possible genetic underpinnings of this family's condition.

From September 2009[8] to March 2013,[9] he wrote a column for The New York Times called "Remarkable Creatures", where he would discuss findings in animal evolution.

In 2010, he was named vice-president for science education of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.[10] In 2011, the HHMI launched a documentary film initiative to produce science features for television, to which Carroll was appointed as one of the executive producers.[11] In 2012, one such film, called The Day the Mesozoic Died, retracing the investigation that led to the discovery of the asteroid collision that triggered the mass extinction at the end of that Era, was introduced by Carroll at a National Teacher's Conference.[12]

In 2010, Carroll received the Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution.[13][14] In 2012, he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science from the Franklin Institute "for proposing and demonstrating that the diversity and multiplicity of animal life is largely due to the different ways that the same genes are regulated rather than to mutation of the genes themselves."[2] In 2016, he was awarded the Lewis Thomas Prize at the Rockefeller University.[15]

Carroll is a proponent of the extended evolutionary synthesis.[16]

Selected works

Books

  • From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design, with Jennifer Grenier and Scott Weatherbee (2004, Wiley-Blackwell; ISBN 1-4051-1950-0)
  • Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom (2005, W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN 0-393-06016-0)
  • The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution (2006, W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN 0-393-06163-9)
  • Into the Jungle: Great Adventures in the Search for Evolution (2008, Benjamin Cummings; ISBN 0-321-55671-2)
  • Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species (2009, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; ISBN 0-15-101485-X)
  • Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize (2013, Crown; ISBN 0-307-95233-9)
  • The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters (2016, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691167428)

Magazine articles

  • The Origins of Form: Ancient genes, recycled and re-purposed, control embryonic development in organisms of striking diversity (2005, Natural History Magazine) [17]
  • God as Genetic Engineer. A review of Michael Behe's book "The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism" (2007, Science Magazine) [18]
  • Regulating Evolution: How Gene Switches Make Life (2008, Scientific American) [19]

Reception

Science writer Peter Forbes, writing in The Guardian, calls Endless Forms Most Beautiful an "essential book" and its author "both a distinguished scientist ... and one of our great science writers." In Forbes's view, in The Serengeti Rules Carroll "manages to unite natural history with the hard science of genomics."[20]

Louise S. Mead, reviewing The Making of the Fittest for the National Center for Science Education, notes that Carroll provides "some of the overwhelming evidence for evolution provided in DNA", using different lines of inquiry such as DNA sequences that code for genes no longer in use, and evidence of evolutionary change. Mead notes that evolutionary theory has predictive power, as with icefish whose ancestors had haemoglobin, but no longer needing it in icy water, they have lost it.[21]

Douglas H. Erwin, reviewing Endless Forms Most Beautiful for Artificial Life, remarks that life forms from Drosophila to man have far fewer genes than many biologists expected – in man's case, only some 20,000, which is about the same as a fly. He notes the "astonishing morphological diversity" of animals coming from "such a limited number of genes". He praises Carroll's "insightful and enthusiastic" style, writing in a "witty and engaging" way, pulling the reader into the complexities of Hox and PAX-6, as well as celebrating the Cambrian explosion of life forms, and much else.[22]

References

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170915195158/https://www.amphilsoc.org/members/electedApril2017
  2. 1 2 3 "Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science". Franklin Institute. 2012. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  3. ↑ "Our Scientists". HHMI. Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  4. ↑ "LCMB Investigators". Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology at UW-Madison. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  5. ↑ Wade, Nicholas (5 July 1994). "How Nature Makes a Butterfly's Wing". The New York Times. p. C9. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
  6. ↑ "Shaw Scientist Award Recipients". Greater Milwaukee Foundation.
  7. ↑ "NOVA: Family That Walks on All Fours". PBS.
  8. ↑ Carroll, Sean B. "In a Shark's Tooth, a New Family Tree". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  9. ↑ Carroll, Sean B. "Solving the Puzzles of Mimicry in Nature". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  10. ↑ "Sean B. Carroll, HHMI Vice President for Science Education". Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  11. ↑ "HHMI Launches Documentary Film Unit to Create Science Features for Television". HHMI. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  12. ↑ "HHMI Premieres New Film Showcasing One of Science's Greatest Detective Stories". HHMI. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  13. ↑ "The Stephen Jay Gould Prize". Society for the Study of Evolution. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  14. ↑ "SSE 2010 Stephen Jay Gould Prize".
  15. ↑ "Presentation of the 2016 Lewis Thomas Prize to Sean B. Carroll". The Rockefeller University. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  16. ↑ Carroll, Sean B (2008). "Evo-Devo and an Expanding Evolutionary Synthesis: A Genetic Theory of Morphological Evolution". Cell. 134: 25–36. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2008.06.030. PMID 18614008.
  17. ↑ Carroll, Sean B. "The Origins of Form". Natural History Magazine. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  18. ↑ Carroll, Sean B (8 June 2007). "God as Genetic Engineer". Science Magazine. 316 (5830): 1427–1428. doi:10.1126/science.1145104.
  19. ↑ Sean B Carroll; Nicolas Gompel; Benjamin Prudhomme (May 2008). "Regulating Evolution: How Gene Switches Make Life". Scientific American. Retrieved 3 May 2017. (Preview)
  20. ↑ Forbes, Peter (23 March 2016). "The Serengeti Rules by Sean B Carroll review – a visionary book about how life works". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  21. ↑ Mead, Louise S. (2008). "Review: The Making of the Fittest". Reports of the National Center for Science Education. 28 (1): 37–39.
  22. ↑ Erwin, Douglas J. (2007). "Book Review: Endless Forms Most Beautiful". Artificial Life. 13 (1): 87–89.
  • Official website
  • "Regulating Evolution: How Gene Switches Make Life". Scientific American.
  • "From a Few Genes, Life's Myriad Shapes". 'New York Times. June 6, 2007.
  • "Author Uses DNA Record to Argue Evolution" (podcast). Talk of the Nation. NPR. Oct 20, 2006.
  • "The Science of Evolution". The New York Times. Jun 25, 2007. Retrieved 10 August 2017.
  • List of Publications from Carroll's lab
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