Ann Chester Chandley

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Ann Chester Chandley

FRSE
Died19 February 2020
Occupation cytogeneticist
EmployerHuman Genetics Unit at the University of Edinburgh
Known forresearch on Y chromosome and fertility

Ann Chester Chandley DSc, F.I.Biol., FRSE (died 19 February 2020) was an international cytogeneticist with the Medical Research Council unit which became the Human Genetics Unit at the University of Edinburgh. She became a Fellow of the Institute of Biology in recognition of her contribution and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [1]

Contents

Career

Chandley's work began at Christie Hospital with A.J. Bateman which established principles of sexual selection in gametes. Chandley also worked with Holt Radium Institute, and focussed on mutations and meiosis cell division, using cytogenetic methodology. These studies were on Drosophila and she completed her PhD in 1968. Chandley then moved on to study genetics in mammals and joined the Human Genetics Unit at Edinburgh. She was a visiting researcher at Cornell University with L. C. Dunn and Dorothea Bennett and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Dan Lindsley and Rhoda Grell. [2]

Her research with Herb Stern and Yasuo Hotta which published in 1977, 'demonstrated conservation of the basic processes of meiotic recombination between plants and mammals.' [3] Her work with Tim Hargreave on the impact of chromosomal variants on fertility, and studying the Y-chromosome using new techniques. [4] Researching with Kun Ma, Chandley found an RNA binding protein, gene RBMY on the Y-chromosome which 'may be involved in regulating germline splicing activity'. [5] [1] Due to the interest in causes of male infertility, she studied 1600 infertile males, and undertook technical projects on a subset. [2] Chandley wrote about the research techniques and impact for human conditions such as Down syndrome. [6] Her work with Roger Short and Twink Allen included the first description of the mechanism which caused infertility in horses and mules and hybrids, which helped her become an advisor to hybrid-breeders and visiting in China and Mongolia. [2] She was on the editorial board of the science journal Chromosome Research. Chandley produced or collaborated in 130 research publications in her career. [2]

When she was due to retire in 1997, a tribute and appreciation Festschrift celebration was held, [7] and contributions were sought from fellow scientists in Manchester, Salisbury, Abingdon, Cambridge, Kew, Wirral and Leicester as well as Germany and Sweden. [7] The event took place at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 5 September 1996. [2]

Personal life and education

Ann Chester Chandley was born in Gatley, Chesire and graduated in 1957 in Botany Zoology and Chemistry from the University of Manchester. [2]

Chandley was also a patron of the Festival Theatre [8] and wrote to the press to comment on current Scottish political affairs including supporting free transport [9] and speaking out for currency policy in the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meiosis</span> Cell division producing haploid gametes

Meiosis is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms that produces the gametes, such as sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately result in four cells with only one copy of each chromosome (haploid). Additionally, prior to the division, genetic material from the paternal and maternal copies of each chromosome is crossed over, creating new combinations of code on each chromosome. Later on, during fertilisation, the haploid cells produced by meiosis from a male and a female will fuse to create a cell with two copies of each chromosome again, the zygote.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chromosomal crossover</span> Cellular process

Chromosomal crossover, or crossing over, is the exchange of genetic material during sexual reproduction between two homologous chromosomes' non-sister chromatids that results in recombinant chromosomes. It is one of the final phases of genetic recombination, which occurs in the pachytene stage of prophase I of meiosis during a process called synapsis. Synapsis begins before the synaptonemal complex develops and is not completed until near the end of prophase I. Crossover usually occurs when matching regions on matching chromosomes break and then reconnect to the other chromosome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genetic recombination</span> Production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent

Genetic recombination is the exchange of genetic material between different organisms which leads to production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. In eukaryotes, genetic recombination during meiosis can lead to a novel set of genetic information that can be further passed on from parents to offspring. Most recombination occurs naturally and can be classified into two types: (1) interchromosomal recombination, occurring through independent assortment of alleles whose loci are on different but homologous chromosomes ; & (2) intrachromosomal recombination, occurring through crossing over.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cytogenetics</span> Branch of genetics

Cytogenetics is essentially a branch of genetics, but is also a part of cell biology/cytology, that is concerned with how the chromosomes relate to cell behaviour, particularly to their behaviour during mitosis and meiosis. Techniques used include karyotyping, analysis of G-banded chromosomes, other cytogenetic banding techniques, as well as molecular cytogenetics such as fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and comparative genomic hybridization (CGH).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nondisjunction</span> Failure to separate properly during cell division

Nondisjunction is the failure of homologous chromosomes or sister chromatids to separate properly during cell division (mitosis/meiosis). There are three forms of nondisjunction: failure of a pair of homologous chromosomes to separate in meiosis I, failure of sister chromatids to separate during meiosis II, and failure of sister chromatids to separate during mitosis. Nondisjunction results in daughter cells with abnormal chromosome numbers (aneuploidy).

David C. Page is an American biologist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the director of the Whitehead Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. He is best known for his work on mapping the Y-chromosome and on its evolution in mammals and expression during development. He was cited by Bryan Sykes in Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men.

Meiotic drive is a type of intragenomic conflict, whereby one or more loci within a genome will affect a manipulation of the meiotic process in such a way as to favor the transmission of one or more alleles over another, regardless of its phenotypic expression. More simply, meiotic drive is when one copy of a gene is passed on to offspring more than the expected 50% of the time. According to Buckler et al., "Meiotic drive is the subversion of meiosis so that particular genes are preferentially transmitted to the progeny. Meiotic drive generally causes the preferential segregation of small regions of the genome".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bivalent (genetics)</span>

A bivalent is one pair of chromosomes in a tetrad. A tetrad is the association of a pair of homologous chromosomes physically held together by at least one DNA crossover. This physical attachment allows for alignment and segregation of the homologous chromosomes in the first meiotic division. In most organisms, each replicated chromosome elicits formation of DNA double-strand breaks during the leptotene phase. These breaks are repaired by homologous recombination, that uses the homologous chromosome as a template for repair. The search for the homologous target, helped by numerous proteins collectively referred as the synaptonemal complex, cause the two homologs to pair, between the leptotene and the pachytene phases of meiosis I.

David Moore Glover is a British geneticist and Research Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He served as Balfour Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, a Wellcome Trust investigator in the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He serves as the first editor-in-chief of the open-access journal Open Biology published by the Royal Society.

Chromosome segregation is the process in eukaryotes by which two sister chromatids formed as a consequence of DNA replication, or paired homologous chromosomes, separate from each other and migrate to opposite poles of the nucleus. This segregation process occurs during both mitosis and meiosis. Chromosome segregation also occurs in prokaryotes. However, in contrast to eukaryotic chromosome segregation, replication and segregation are not temporally separated. Instead segregation occurs progressively following replication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meiotic recombination checkpoint</span>

The meiotic recombination checkpoint monitors meiotic recombination during meiosis, and blocks the entry into metaphase I if recombination is not efficiently processed.

Dorothea Bennett was a geneticist, known for the genetics of early mammalian development and for research into mammalian sperm surface structures and their role in fertilization and spermatogenesis. She was "one of the major figures in mouse developmental genetics".

Leslie Clarence Dunn was a developmental geneticist at Columbia University. His early work with the mouse T-locus and established ideas of gene interaction, fertility factors, and allelic distribution. Later work with other model organisms continued to contribute to developmental genetics. Dunn was also an activist, helping fellow scientists seek asylum during World War II, and a critic of eugenics movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Synthesis-dependent strand annealing</span>

Synthesis-dependent strand annealing (SDSA) is a major mechanism of homology-directed repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). Although many of the features of SDSA were first suggested in 1976, the double-Holliday junction model proposed in 1983 was favored by many researchers. In 1994, studies of double-strand gap repair in Drosophila were found to be incompatible with the double-Holliday junction model, leading researchers to propose a model they called synthesis-dependent strand annealing. Subsequent studies of meiotic recombination in S. cerevisiae found that non-crossover products appear earlier than double-Holliday junctions or crossover products, challenging the previous notion that both crossover and non-crossover products are produced by double-Holliday junctions and leading the authors to propose that non-crossover products are generated through SDSA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Bickmore</span> British genome biologist (born 1961)

Wendy Anne Bickmore is a British genome biologist known for her research on the organisation of genomic material in cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melina Schuh</span> German molecular biologist

Melina Schuh is a German biochemist and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences. She is known for her work on meiosis in mammalian oocytes, for her studies on the mechanisms leading to the age-related decline in female fertility, and for the development of the Trim-Away protein depletion method.

Glenna Shirleen Roeder is a geneticist known for identifying and characterizing the yeast genes that regulate the process of meiosis with particular emphasis on synapsis.

Abby F. Dernburg is a Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a Faculty Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Villeneuve (scientist)</span> American geneticist

Anne Villeneuve is an American geneticist. She is known for her work on the mechanisms governing chromosome inheritance during sexual reproduction. Her work focuses on meiosis, the process by which a diploid organism, having two sets of chromosomes, produces gametes with only one set of chromosomes. She is a Professor of Developmental Biology and of Genetics at Stanford University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Cohen</span> British-American geneticist

Paula Elaine Cohen is a British-American geneticist who is a professor and Associate Vice Provost for Life Sciences at Cornell University. Her research considers DNA repair mechanisms and the regulation of crossing over during mammalian meiosis. She was awarded the National Down Syndrome Society Charles J. Epstein Down Syndrome Research Award in 2004 and elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 "An obituary to Ann Chandley". The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ferguson-Smith, Malcolm (1997). "Ann Chester Chandley DSc, FIBiol, FRSE A tribute and appreciation on the occasion of her retirement". Chromosome Research. 5 (1): 3–4. doi:10.1023/A:1018429016482. PMID   9088637. S2CID   6550920.
  3. ↑ Hotta, Yasuo; Chandley, Ann C.; Stern, Herbert (September 1977). "Meiotic crossing-over in lily and mouse". Nature. 269 (5625): 240–242. doi:10.1038/269240a0. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   593319. S2CID   4268089.
  4. ↑ Hargreave, T. B.; Chandley, A. C.; Ross, A.; Qureshi, S.; Kun, M.; Cooke, H. (1996). "Y chromosome microdeletions and male subfertility". Andrologia. 28 (Suppl 1): 19–21. ISSN   0303-4569. PMID   9017092.
  5. ↑ Ma, Kun; Inglis, John D.; Sharkey, Andrew; Bickmore, Wendy A.; Hill, Robert E.; Prosser, E. Jane; Speed, Robert M.; Thomson, Eric J.; Jobling, Mark; Taylor, Kay; Wolfe, Jonathan (31 December 1993). "A Y chromosome gene family with RNA-binding protein homology: Candidates for the azoospermia factor AZF controlling human spermatogenesis". Cell. 75 (7): 1287–1295. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(93)90616-X. ISSN   0092-8674. PMID   8269511. S2CID   24678568.
  6. ↑ Chandley, A. (1 March 1988). "Meiosis in man". Trends in Genetics. 4 (3): 79–84. doi:10.1016/0168-9525(88)90045-5. ISSN   0168-9525. PMID   3076296.
  7. 1 2 "'Ann Chester Chandley DSc, F.I. Biol., F.R.S.E. - a tribute and appreciation on the occasion of her retirement' in Chromosome Research 5.1, (1997)". Wellcome Collection. 23 January 1996. p. Letter to Prof Nick Hastie from M.A.Ferguson. Retrieved 30 July 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ↑ "Ann Chester CHANDLEY". The Scotsman. 9 March 2020.
  9. ↑ "Letters". Edinburgh Evening News. 5 February 2014.
  10. ↑ "Letters". The Edinburgh Evening News. 11 September 2014.
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