Alice Elizabeth Gairdner (1873–1954) was a British plant scientist,

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic process ...

and

cytologist Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

Life

In the 1910s, Gairdner was associated with the

Plant Breeding Institute The Plant Breeding Institute was an agricultural research organisation in Cambridge in the United Kingdom between 1912 and 1987. Founding The institute was established in 1912 as part of the School of Agriculture at the University of Cambridge. ...

in Cambridge and became one of

William Bateson William Bateson (8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926) was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscover ...

's Mendelian followers. In Cambridge she studied

Tropaeolum ''Tropaeolum'' , commonly known as nasturtium (; literally "nose-twister" or "nose-tweaker"), is a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants. It was named by Carl Linnaeus in his book ''Species Plantarum'', ...

(Nasturtium) and this work interested Bateson – he had numerous drawings and figures of Tropaeolum by Gairdner in his collection. Gairdner joined the John Innes Horticultural Institution (now the John Innes Centre) in 1919 as a student, joining the so-called 'Ladies Lab' along with Caroline Pellew, Dorothea De Winton, Dorothy Cayley, Aslaug Sverdrup and Irma Andersson-Kottö. Gairdner investigated male sterility in

flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. In 2022, France produced 75% of t ...

, initially with Bateson, and continued the work after his death. In papers published in 1921 and 1929, they proposed that nuclear-cytoplasmic interactions may be causing the male sterility phenotype. Gairdner primarily worked with J. B. S. Haldane, who led the genetics research at the institution from 1927 to 1937, following Bateson's death in 1926. By 1929, Gairdner had been appointed as a "cytologist", as her work combined genetic analysis with microscopy. With Haldane, she studied the genetics of

Antirrhinum ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants in the Plantaginaceae family, commonly known as dragon flowers or snapdragons because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They ...

, leading to the publication of two papers in 1929 and 1933 on the inheritance of two linked factors that could interact to produce a lethal phenotype. These papers indicate that Gairdner was solely responsible for the practical work (continuing crosses set up by her predecessor, Ida Sutton), and Haldane for the theoretical interpretation. She also studied Cleiranthus, and collaborated with Haldane and Rose Scott-Moncrieff in the investigation of pigmentation in the flowers. Gairdner also published several articles with Cyril Darlington describing chromosome pairing and ring formation during meiosis in

Campanula ''Campanula'' () is the type genus of the Campanulaceae family (biology), family of flowering plants. ''Campanula'' are commonly known as bellflowers and take both their common and scientific names from the bell-shaped flowers—''campanula'' i ...

. Gairdner presented the work on ring formation in Campanula at the Genetics Society meeting in 1936.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gairdner, Alice Elizabeth 1873 births 1954 deaths British women geneticists British geneticists 20th-century British botanists British women botanists British horticulturists Alumni of the University of Cambridge