Vivian Irish

Vivian Irish Vivian Frances Irish (born 1959) is an American professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and a leading expert on the ABC model of flower development. She was for one academic year from 2012 to 2013 the president of the Society for Developmental Biology and in 2023 was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Quotes Organogenesis entails the regulation of cell division, cell expansion, Cellular differentiation cell and Tissue (biology)#Plant tissue tissue type differentiation, and patterning of the organ as a whole. Petals are ideally suited to dissecting these processes. Petals are dispensable for growth and reproduction, enabling varied manipulations to be carried out with ease. In Arabidopsis, petals have a simple laminar structure with a small number of cell types, facilitating the analysis of organogenesis. This review summarizes recent studies that have illuminated some of the complex interplay between the Gene regulatory network genetic pathways controlling petal specification, growth and differentiation in Arabidopsis. These advances, coupled with the advantages of using petals as a model experimental system, provide an excellent platform to investigate the underlying mechanisms driving plant organogenesis. P430-436 August 2008 The Arabidopsis petal: a model for plant organogenesis Trends in Plant Science 13 8 https://www.cell.com/trends/cell-biology/abstract/S1360-1385(08)00162-3 Flowers are organized into concentric Whorl (botany) whorls of sepals, petals, stamens 
and Gynoecium carpels, with each of these floral organ types having a unique role in Flowering plant#Reproduction reproduction ... Sepals enclose and protect the flower bud, while 
petals can be large and showy so as to attract pollinators (or people!). Stamens produce pollen grains that contain male gametes, while the carpels contain the ovules that when fertilized will produce the seeds. While the size, shape, number and elaboration of each of these organ types can be quite different, the same general organization of four floral organ types arranged in concentric whorls exists across all Flowering plant flowering plant (angiosperm) species. As I shall explain in this Primer, the ‘ABC model’ is a simple and satisfying explanation for how this conserved floral architecture is genetically specified.What is the ABC model?The ABC model was first explicitly articulated in 1991, in a seminal paper by Enrico Coen and Elliot Meyerowitz. Although Homeotic gene homeotic mutations affecting floral organ identity had been known for centuries, it was the systematic analyses of these mutations, and of the phenotypes produced by double and triple mutants, that proved to be critical in developing the ABC model. Primer: The ABC model of floral development Current Biology 27 R887–R890 September 11, 2017 https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2817%2930343-3 (quote from p. R887) As a graduate student, I encountered a book that still inspires me: Classic Papers in Genetics edited by James A. Peters. Sadly, it is now out of print, but it is a wonderful compendium of many groundbreaking papers,starting with Mendel’s ‘Experiments in Plant Hybridization’. It also includes several papers by my scientific hero, Alfred Sturtevant A.H. Sturtevant, who figured out the principle of Genetic linkage genetic mapping as an undergraduate, and whose papers are a model of clarity and careful reasoning. I also really enjoy reading Peters’ prefaces to each paper, which place each work in its scientific and historical context. Q & A: Vivian Irish Current Biology 28 R641–R642 June 4, 2018 https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2818%2930538-4 (quote from R642) External links Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Biologists from the United States Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Women born in the 1950s Category:Women scientists from the United States Category:Yale University faculty