Katrien Devos | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Ghent University |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | John Innes Centre University of Georgia |
| Website | http://research.franklin.uga.edu/devoslab/ |
Katrien M. Devos is an American plant geneticist who is distinguished research professor at theUniversity of Georgia. Her research considers the structure, function and evolution of the genomes of grasses. In particular, Devos considers halophytic turfgrasses, cereals andbioenergy crops. She was elected Fellow of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science in 2016.
Devos became interested in plant genetics during her undergraduate studies. She was a doctoral researcher atGhent University, where she studiedwheat andTriticeae genetic mapping.[1][2] She moved to theUnited Kingdom as a postdoctoral researcher, where she used comparative genetics to better understand cereals. In the United Kingdom, she worked inJohn Innes Centre[3] where she created the concept of crop circles, which considers the relationship between grass genomes.[4]
In 1996 Devos was awarded aBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council David Phillips Fellowship to start her independent scientific career, where she started working on genome evolution. Devos worked with theInternational Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics to create a millet cultivar for food crops in the developing world. These millet crops were bred to have improved resistance to downy mildew.[citation needed]
Devos moved to theUniversity of Georgia in 2003, where has focused on understanding the genetics of grasses.[5] These investigations have included target crops such aswheat,panicum virgatumfoxtail millet,eleusine coracana.[4] By sequencing the genome ofpearl millet, Devos was able to identify a dwarfing gene,[6] the first gene that causes an agronomic trait that was ever isolated.[7][8]
