Group - Ottoline Leyser

During my undergraduate, I worked in Liam Dolan’s lab on the role of miRNAs in the development of the model liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. My research project was two-fold: (i) the general and sex-specific importance of miRNAs in the vegetative to reproductive phase transitions, and (ii) the role of the RSL Class 1 transcription factor and its microRNA FRH1 in regulating the formation of vegetative structures.

Research Interests

Ottoline received her BA (1986) and PhD (1990) in Genetics from the University of Cambridge. After post-doctoral research at Indiana University and Cambridge, she took up a lectureship at the University of York, where she worked from 1994-2010. Among her honours are the Society of Experimental Biology’s President’s Medal (2000), the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award (2007), the International Plant Growth Substance Association’s Silver Medal (2010), the UK Genetics Society Medal (2016) and the EMBO Women in Science Award (2017).