Dame Caroline Dean, DBE FRS

Dame Caroline Dean DBE FRS (born 2 April 1957) is a British plant scientist working at the John Innes Centre. She is focused on understanding the molecular controls used by plants to seasonally judge when to flower. She is specifically interested in vernalisation — the acceleration of flowering in plants by exposure to periods of prolonged cold.

Education

Dean was educated at the University of York, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology in 1978 and a PhD. in Biology in 1982.

Research and career

Dean's research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council European Research Council, EU-Marie Curie and EMBO and focuses on research on gene regulation and the intersection of chromatin, transcription and non-coding RNAs. Her goal is to understand the chromatin dynamics that enable switching between epigenetic states and quantitative regulation of gene expression. This mechanistic analysis is focused on one gene encoding the floral repressor FLC. Epigenetic switching and quantitative regulation of FLC play a central role in seasonal timing in plants. This acceleration of flowering by prolonged cold is a classic epigenetic process called vernalisation.

FLC regulation involves an antisense-mediated chromatin mechanism that coordinately influences transcription initiation and elongation. As plants overwinter FLC expression is then epigenetically silenced through a cold-induced, cis-based, Polycomb switching mechanism. The group are mechanistically dissecting these conserved chromatin mechanisms and investigating how they have been modulated during adaptation.

She uses Arabidopsis as a reference to establish the regulatory hierarchy and then use this information to translate into other species. She was a pioneer in Arabidopsis becoming a key model organism in plant science.

Awards and honours

• 1993 - 2002 Honorary Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia
• 1999 - Elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
• 2004 - Fellow of the Royal Society
• 2004 - Appointed office of the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• 2007 - Genetics Society Medal
• 2008 - elected a foreign member the United States National Academy of Sciences
• 2008 - elected a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
• 2015 - FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award.
• 2016 - Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE)
• 2016 - Darwin Medal by the Royal Society
• 2018 - L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award
• 2020 - Wolf Prize in Agriculture.

Personal life: Dean is married to Jonathan D. G. Jones and has one son and one daughter.