American molecular biologist and researcher
Alice Barkan is an American molecular biologist and a professor of biology at the
University of Oregon . She is known for her work on
chloroplast gene regulation and protein synthesis.
Education
Alice Barkan received her
B.S. from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
In 1983 she completed her
Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin under the supervision of
Janet E. Mertz , with the thesis "Characterization of Simian Virus 40 Late Leader Region Mutants".
[2]
[3]
[1]
Career and awards
Barkan joined the
University of Oregon in 1991, where she is currently a Professor in the Institute of Molecular Biology.
[4]
Barkan was named a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2017.
[5]
In 2018, Barkan received the Lawrence Bogorad Award for Excellence in Plant Biology Research from the
American Society of Plant Biologists .
Barkan was the recipient of a Faculty Excellence Award from the University of Oregon for 2018–19.
[6]
Barkan was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences in 2020.
[7] Election to the National Academy is one of the highest honors in the scientific field.
[8] [
circular reference ]
The University of Oregon (UO) awarded Barkan an Outstanding Career Award in 2020 to acknowledge not only her scientific accomplishments but also her career contributions in teaching, mentorship and leadership at the UO.
[9]
Research
Barkan's research is focused on how nucleus-encoded proteins affect
chloroplast
gene expression .
[10]
[11]
[12] Experiments from her lab use mutants, primarily in
maize (Zea mays ) but also
Arabidopsis thaliana , to investigate chloroplast
mRNA
translation and stability, as well as many aspects of RNA maturation, including
splicing and
editing .
[13]
[14]
[15] Barkan and her colleagues have discovered and studied dozens of plant nuclear genes that encode chloroplast RNA binding proteins that directly affect multiple aspects of RNA metabolism (processing, splicing, translation, stability).
[16] The majority of the nucleus-encoded proteins that Barkan has characterized contain
pentatricopeptide repeats (PPR).
[10] Barkan has also discovered and named the CRM (
chloroplast RNA splicing and ribosome maturation ) domain, which is found in nucleus-encoded proteins required for chloroplast RNA splicing.
[17]
[18] In 2019, Barkan and colleagues successfully constructed PPR proteins that bound specific RNA sequences in vivo, thus establishing a system for creating targeted protein-RNA interactions.
[19]
[20]
Personal life
Barkan is a founding member of the musical group Byrdsong Renaissance Consort, with whom she plays the viol and recorder.
[21]
References
^
a
b
"Janet Mertz's curriculum vitae, 1984" . CSHL Archives Repository. 1984. Retrieved 24 May 2019 .
^
"Alice Barkan" . University of Oregon - Institute of Molecular Biology. Retrieved 24 May 2019 .
^
Alice Barkan Dissertation . 1983. Retrieved 17 July 2019 .
^
"Alice Barkan" . molbio.uoregon.edu . Retrieved 2020-06-14 .
^
"Six UO faculty members are named as fellows in the AAAS" . University of Oregon. 20 November 2017. Retrieved 24 May 2019 .
^
"Provost announces recipients of Faculty Excellence Awards" . Around the O . University of Oregon. 19 June 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2020 .
^
"2020 NAS Election" . www.nasonline.org . Retrieved 2020-05-02 .
^
"National Academy of Sciences" . Wikipedia . Retrieved 29 December 2020 .
^
"Five faculty members receive Outstanding Research Awards" . Around the O . University of Oregon. 8 June 2020. Retrieved 29 December 2020 .
^
a
b Barkan, Alice; Small, Ian (2014-04-29).
"Pentatricopeptide Repeat Proteins in Plants" . Annual Review of Plant Biology . 65 (1): 415–442.
doi :
10.1146/annurev-arplant-050213-040159 .
ISSN
1543-5008 .
PMID
24471833 .
^ Watkins, Kenneth P.; Williams-Carrier, Rosalind; Chotewutmontri, Prakitchai; Friso, Giulia; Teubner, Marlene; Belcher, Susan; Ruwe, Hannes; Schmitz-Linneweber, Christian; Wijk, Klaas J. van; Barkan, Alice (2020).
"Exploring the proteome associated with the mRNA encoding the D1 reaction center protein of Photosystem II in plant chloroplasts" . The Plant Journal . 102 (2): 369–382.
doi :
10.1111/tpj.14629 .
ISSN
1365-313X .
PMID
31793101 .
^ Chotewutmontri, Prakitchai; Barkan, Alice (2016-07-14). Wollman, Francis-André (ed.).
"Dynamics of Chloroplast Translation during Chloroplast Differentiation in Maize" . PLOS Genetics . 12 (7): e1006106.
doi :
10.1371/journal.pgen.1006106 .
ISSN
1553-7404 .
PMC
4945096 .
PMID
27414025 .
^ Barkan, A. (1988-09-01).
"Proteins encoded by a complex chloroplast transcription unit are each translated from both monocistronic and polycistronic mRNAs" . The EMBO Journal . 7 (9): 2637–2644.
doi :
10.1002/j.1460-2075.1988.tb03116.x .
ISSN
0261-4189 .
PMC
457051 .
PMID
2460341 .
^ Barkan, A. (1993-04-01).
"Nuclear Mutants of Maize with Defects in Chloroplast Polysome Assembly Have Altered Chloroplast RNA Metabolism" . The Plant Cell . 5 (4): 389–402.
doi :
10.1105/tpc.5.4.389 .
ISSN
1040-4651 .
PMC
160279 .
PMID
12271069 .
^ Jenkins, B. D.; Kulhanek, D. J.; Barkan, A. (1997-03-01).
"Nuclear mutations that block group II RNA splicing in maize chloroplasts reveal several intron classes with distinct requirements for splicing factors" . The Plant Cell . 9 (3): 283–296.
doi :
10.1105/tpc.9.3.283 .
ISSN
1040-4651 .
PMC
156918 .
PMID
9090875 .
^ Barkan, Alice; Goldschmidt-Clermont, Michel (2000-06-07).
"Participation of nuclear genes in chloroplast gene expression" . Biochimie . 82 (6): 559–572.
doi :
10.1016/S0300-9084(00)00602-7 .
ISSN
0300-9084 .
PMID
10946107 .
^ Ostheimer, G. J. (2003-08-01).
"Group II intron splicing factors derived by diversification of an ancient RNA-binding domain" . The EMBO Journal . 22 (15): 3919–3929.
doi :
10.1093/emboj/cdg372 .
ISSN
1460-2075 .
PMC
169045 .
PMID
12881426 .
^ de Longevialle, Andéol Falcon; Small, Ian D.; Lurin, Claire (2010).
"Nuclearly Encoded Splicing Factors Implicated in RNA Splicing in Higher Plant Organelles" . Molecular Plant . 3 (4): 691–705.
doi :
10.1093/mp/ssq025 .
PMID
20603383 .
^ McDermott, James J.; Watkins, Kenneth P.; Williams-Carrier, Rosalind; Barkan, Alice (2019-08-01).
"Ribonucleoprotein Capture by in Vivo Expression of a Designer Pentatricopeptide Repeat Protein in Arabidopsis" . The Plant Cell . 31 (8): 1723–1733.
doi :
10.1105/tpc.19.00177 .
ISSN
1040-4651 .
PMC
6713294 .
PMID
31123048 .
^ Rojas, Margarita; Yu, Qiguo; Williams-Carrier, Rosalind; Maliga, Pal; Barkan, Alice (2019).
"Engineered PPR proteins as inducible switches to activate the expression of chloroplast transgenes" . Nature Plants . 5 (5): 505–511.
doi :
10.1038/s41477-019-0412-1 .
ISSN
2055-0278 .
PMID
31036912 .
S2CID
139103684 .
^
"Byrdsong Renaissance Consort" . byrdsongconsort.com . Retrieved 2020-06-14 .
External links
International National Academics