Veronica van Heyningen | |
|---|---|
| Born | Veronica Daniel (1946-11-12)12 November 1946 (age 79)[6] |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom (naturalised) |
| Alma mater |
|
| Spouse | [6] |
| Awards | EMBO Member (2002)[1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Mitochondrial and other enzymes in somatic cell hybrids (1973) |
| Doctoral advisor | Walter Bodmer[7] |
| Website | iris |
Veronica van Heyningen (née Daniel; born 12 November 1946,[6]Békéscsaba,Hungary[8]) is an English geneticist who specialises in theetiology ofanophthalmia as an honorary professor atUniversity College London (UCL).[9][10][7][5] She previously served as head ofmedical genetics at theMRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh and the president ofThe Genetics Society.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] In 2014 she became president of theGalton Institute. As of 2019[update] she chairs thediversity committee of theRoyal Society, previously chaired byUta Frith.[18]
Veronica (Veronika) Daniel was born in 1946 inBékéscsaba,Hungary. Her parents were survivors ofThe Holocaust who had been interned inNazi concentration camps. The majority of their families were murdered inAuschwitz. Her father was a textile engineer who had studied in Germany beforeWorld War II, enabling him to work after the war at a textile research institute inBudapest.[8]
Sponsored by an uncle in Britain, the family was able to get an immigrant passport, arriving inWorthing, Sussex, on January 30, 1958. They soon moved toLoughborough, where her father had found a position as a technical director. Veronica van Heyningen has commented that these experiences made her and her sister "very aware that education is life's major portable asset".[8] In 1963, as soon as it was legally possible to do so, her family applied for British citizenship.[8]
She lived at 20 Valley Road in Loughborough. She started atHumphrey Perkins Grammar School from the age of 12, gaining 11 O-levels. She took Physics, Chemistry and Biology A-level, taking part in swimming, and was in the school debating society.[19]
Veronica studied theNatural Sciences Tripos at theUniversity of Cambridge, and was an undergraduate atGirton College, Cambridge where she specialised in genetics from 1965 to 1968.[8][6] In June 1968 she married Simon van Heyningen, whom she had met when she was a student at Girton and he was a PhD student at King's College. Her subsequent career choices were shaped by thetwo-body problem.[8]
She spent two years atNorthwestern University inEvanston, Illinois, where she was awarded aMaster of Science degree.[6] After initially arranging to work on a PhD withHarry Harris in the UCL Galton Laboratory atUniversity College London (UCL), she moved to Oxford where she was able to work withWalter Bodmer, newly arrived as Professor of Genetics.[8] With Bodmer, van Heyningen worked on earlygene mapping studies usingsomatic cell hybrids.[7]She was supported by a three-year doctoral training grant from theMedical Research Council (MRC).[8] In 1973[8] she completed herDoctor of Philosophy degree[20] at theUniversity of Oxford.[7]
Van Heyningen was awarded aBeit Memorial Fellowship, which enabled her to take up a fellowship inEdinburgh with Peter Walker at the MRC Mammalian Genome Unit (MGU). In June 1977, after the fellowship ended, she joined the MRC Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit (CAPCU). She gained tenure there in February 1981. In 1992, Van Heyningen received funding as part of the International Research Scholar program of theHoward Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). She became the leader of what later became known as the Medical and Developmental Genetics Section. Van Heyningen worked at CAPCU (later named the MRC Human Genetics Unit or MRC HGU) for 35 years, retiring in 2012.[8]
Van Heyningen served as president of theEuropean Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) in 2003 and ofThe Genetics Society from 2009 to 2012.[21] Van Heyningen served as a member of the UKHuman Genetics Commission.[21]
After her retirement in 2012, Van Heyningen moved to London. She is an honorary (non-teaching) professor at theUCL Institute of Ophthalmology, associated withUniversity College London and theMoorfields Eye Hospital. She continues to collaborate with researchers such as ophthalmologist Andrew Webster.[8] In 2013 her work led to becoming patron of the charity Aniridia Network for people affected by aniridia in the UK.[22]
Van Heyningen is a geneticist who studieseye development and disease. Among her research highlights is the discovery of thePAX6 gene, which ismutated in the eye disorderaniridia — the absence of theiris. PAX6 also coordinates the expression of other eye development genes, including theSOX2 andOrthodenticle homeobox 2 (OTX2) genes which are mutated inmicrophthalmia andanophthalmia. In the context of PAX6, she has explored in detail mechanisms of long-rangegene regulation and aspects ofphenotype variation.[21][8]
Van Heyningen has received many awards in recognition of her work, including being appointedCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to science in the2010 Birthday Honours.[23] She was awarded the Carter Medal of the Clinical Genetics Society in 2011.[21] Other awards include:
“All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available underCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at theWayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |