Deborah Charlesworth (née Maltby; born 1943) is a

population geneticist Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and po ...

from the UK, notable for her important discoveries in

population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as Adaptation (biology), adaptation, ...

and

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes ( natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life ...

. Her most notable research is in understanding the evolution of recombination,

sex chromosome A sex chromosome (also referred to as an allosome, heterotypical chromosome, gonosome, heterochromosome, or idiochromosome) is a chromosome that differs from an ordinary autosome in form, size, and behavior. The human sex chromosomes, a typical ...

s and mating system for plants.

Early life and education

Charlesworth grew up in a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

suburb, and from a young age was very interested in the natural world around her. Charlesworth initially studied biochemistry, however genetic variation played a significant role since the beginning her research. Charlesworth obtained her doctorate at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

in 1968 with her thesis focusing on the quantitative genetics of mice, specifically the extent of genetic variation in the blood glucose levels across natural strains. This also happened to be the topic of her first study. Charlesworth continued her education at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

and Chicago as a research fellow in human genetics examining amino acid variations in hemoglobins in human populations. Charlesworth's interest in evolutionary biology continued through her collaboration with Brian Charlesworth, specifically their works on mimicry systems and recombination rates causing her to shift her focus to evolution. She continued her post-doctoral research at,

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, Sussex University as Brian Charlesworth took positions at each, causing Debrah to do research without Grant support. She was mentored at Cambridge by Hermann Lehmann. At the age of 45, Charlesworth obtained her first faculty position teaching at

from 1988–1997. By this time, Charlesworth had already published ~50 articles. Following this position, Charlesworth left to take up a Professorial Research Fellowship at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. She is best known for her work on the evolution of genetic self-incompatibility in plants and is recognised as a leader in that field. According to the Web of Science she has published over 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals. These articles have been cited over 10,000 times and she has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as ...

of 53. She has been married since 1967 to the British evolutionary biologist Brian Charlesworth, who she ended up working in population genetics with.

Awards and honors

Charlesworth was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2001 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2005 In 2011, Charlesworth was awarded the Molecular Ecology Prize. Charlesworth was awarded the Genetics Society Medal 2019. She was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the

Society for the Study of Evolution The Society for the Study of Evolution is a professional organization of evolutionary biologists. It was formed in the United States in 1946 to promote evolution and the integration of various fields of science concerned with evolution and to organ ...

in January 2020. In 2022, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Selected publications

* Charlesworth, D,Wright, SI. (2001) Breeding systems and genome evolution. Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 11, 685–690. * Jesper S. Bechsgaard, Vincent Castric, Deborah Charlesworth, Xavier Vekemans, Mikkel H. Schierup. 2006. The transition to self-compatibility in Arabidopsis thaliana and evolution within S-haplotypes over 10 million years. Molecular Biology and Evolution 23: 1741–1750. * Asher D. Cutter, Scott E. Baird and Deborah Charlesworth. 2006 Patterns of nucleotide polymorphism and the decay of linkage disequilibrium in wild populations of Caenorhabditis remanei. Genetics 174: 901–913. * Bergero, R., A. Forrest, E. Kamau, and D. Charlesworth. 2007. Evolutionary strata on the X chromosomes of the dioecious plant Silene latifolia: evidence from new sex-linked genes. Genetics 175:1945-1954. * D. Charlesworth 2006 Balancing selection and its effects on sequences in nearby genome regions. PLoS Genetics 2: e64 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.0020064. * S. Qiu, R. Bergero, A. Forrest, V. Kaiser, D. Charlesworth 2010 Nucleotide diversity in Silene latifolia autosomal and sex-linked genes. Proceedings of the Royal Soc. 277: 3283-3290 (doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0606). * Bergero, R., and D. Charlesworth, 2011 Preservation of the Y transcriptome in a 10MY old plant sex chromosome system. Current Biology 21: 1470–1474. * Jordan, C., and D. Charlesworth, 2012 The potential for sexually antagonistic polymorphism in different genome regions. Evolution 66: 505–516. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01448.x

References

Bibliography

* ''Introduction to Plant Population Biology'' (with Jonathan W Silvertown) * ''Evolution: A Very Short Introduction'' (with Brian Charlesworth) OUP

External links

Homepage
1943 births 20th-century British biologists 21st-century British biologists 20th-century British women scientists 21st-century British women scientists Academics of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge British women biologists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Female Fellows of the Royal Society Living people Population geneticists University of Chicago faculty Women evolutionary biologists {{UK-scientist-stub