[
Development,
2025]
Dominique Bergmann completed her PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA, studying left-right asymmetry in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Her interest in cell geometry and organisation led her into the field of plant development, and she carried out postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution before establishing her own lab at Stanford University, USA. Dominique is now a Professor of Biology at Stanford and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She has been an Editor at Development since 2023. We caught up with Dominique over Zoom to find out more about her research in the field of stomatal development, her role as an Editor, and how her passion for comparative biology has influenced her career.
[
Genetics,
2014]
THE Genetics Society of America's Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal is awarded to an individual GSA member for lifetime achievement in the field of genetics. The 2014 recipient is Frederick Ausubel, whose 40-year career has centered on host-microbe interactions and host innate immunity. He is widely recognized as a key scientist responsible for establishing the modern postrecombinant DNA field of host-microbe interactions using simple nonvertebrate hosts. He has used genetic approaches to conduct pioneering work that spawned six related areas of research: the evolution and regulation of Rhizobium genes involved in symbiotic nitrogen fixation; the regulation of Rhizobium genes by two-component regulatory systems involving histidine kinases; the establishment of Arabidopsis thaliana as a worldwide model system; the identification of a large family of plant disease resistance genes; the identification of so-called multi-host bacterial pathogens; and the demonstration that Caenorhabditis elegans has an evolutionarily conserved innate immune system that shares features of both plant and mammalian immunity.