Rico Coen | |
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| Born | Enrico Sandro Coen (1957-09-29)29 September 1957 (age 67)[3] |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (PhD) |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Plant biology |
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| Thesis | The dynamics of multigene family evolution in Drosophila (1982) |
| Doctoral advisor | Gabriel Dover[1][2] |
| Website | rico-coen |
Enrico Sandro CoenCBE FRS (born 29 September 1957) is a British biologist who studies the mechanisms used by plants to create complex and varied flower structures. Coen's research has aimed to define the developmental rules that govern flower and leaf growth at both the cellular level and throughout the whole plant to better understand evolution. He has combined molecular, genetic and imaging studies with population and ecological models and computational analysis to understand flower development.[4]
Enrico Coen's father was a physicist and his mother was a chemist. Coen developed an interest in biology at age 15 after reading a biochemistry book entitledThe Chemistry of Life. Drawn to abstract analysis, he was undecided whether to pursue chemistry or genetics, and ultimately decided for genetics because lectures began later and there was "coffee for exams".[2]
After graduation fromKing's College, Cambridge in 1979 Coen stayed at Cambridge to pursue his doctoral degree. In 1982, he earned a PhD for research onDrosophila supervised by geneticistGabriel Dover on the evolution and function of genes needed to make ribosomal RNA in fruit fly lines, which were selected for the number of bristles on their abdomen.[1][5]
In 1982, Coen became a research fellow atSt John's College, Cambridge. He decided to study the mechanism ofsupergenes, gene clusters acting together to affect both evolution and development. As one of the best-defined supergenes was inprimroses, he wrote a proposal, and was accepted as a research fellow in the lab of plant biologistDick Flavell at thePlant Breeding Institute in Cambridge.
After a year (1983/4) he sought a different plant system to continue his research atJohn Innes Centre inNorwich which studiedAntirrhinum, commonly known as snapdragon, and was hired together with colleagueCathie Martin to join the lab of Brian Harrison andRosemary Carpenter.[2] Coen screened snapdragons for developmental mutants withsepals instead ofpetals andcarpels instead ofstamens, caused by transposon insertions. He eventually discovered that three classes of genes controlled whorl development in wild-type snapdragons: class A controlled sepal identity, class A and B petal identity, B and C stamen identity, and C alone carpel identity.[2] In collaboration withElliot Meyerowitz of the California Institute of Technology he created computer simulations of how plant cells and their genes interact to direct flower formation and control colour.[6] In 1994 he published evidence of unity and logic of floral development across species on the molecular level as did the labs of Meyerowitz, of Zsuzsanna Schwarz-Sommer and Hans Sommer at Max Planck Institute in Cologne.
In the 1990s he collaborated withPrzemysław Prusinkiewicz, a computer scientist knowledgeable in biological development at the University of Calgary and others computer modeling techniques to relate gene activity to patterns of growth and geometry.[2][7]
Coen has written several books, includingCells to Civilizations: The Principles of Change That Shape Life,[8] in which he postulates the seven ingredients which shape life: population variation, persistence, reinforcement, competition, co-operation, combinatorial richness and recurrence.[4][9][10][11]
Enrico Coen.
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