Allan C. Spradling is an American

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

and principal investigator at the

Carnegie Institution for Science The Carnegie Institution for Science, also known as Carnegie Science and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is an organization established to fund and perform scientific research in the United States. This institution is headquartered in W ...

and the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

who studies egg development in the

model organism A model organism is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the model organism will provide insight into the workings of other organisms. Mo ...

, ''

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (an insect of the Order (biology), order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly", "pomace fly" ...

'', a fruit fly. He is considered a leading researcher in the

developmental genetics Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and differentiation of stem ...

of the fruit fly egg and has developed a number of techniques in his career that have led to greater understanding of fruit fly genetics including contributions to sequencing its genome. He is also an adjunct professor at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

and at the

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a Private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Established in 1893 following the construction of the Johns Ho ...

Education

Spradling obtained an A.B. in physics from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. He earned his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in cell biology from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in 1975 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Indiana University. He joined

in 1980 and served as the director of the organization’s former Department of Embryology between 1994 and 2016.

Career

Spradling and fellow American geneticist Gerald M. Rubin are considered pioneers in the field of genetics for their work in the early 1980s with their idea to "attach" a gene to a ''Drosophila''

transposon A transposable element (TE), also transposon, or jumping gene, is a type of mobile genetic element, a nucleic acid sequence in DNA that can change its position within a genome. The discovery of mobile genetic elements earned Barbara McClinto ...

P elements ''P'' elements are transposable elements that were discovered in ''Drosophila'' as the causative agents of genetic traits called hybrid dysgenesis. The transposon is responsible for the ''P'' trait of the ''P'' element and it is found only in wi ...

, known to insert itself into fruit fly's chromosomes. From this research came work from other scientists on transposons as a tool for genetic alterations in organisms. In 2003 Spradling was awarded the Beadle Medal and in 2008 Spradling was awarded the

Gruber Prize in Genetics The Gruber Prize in Genetics, established in 2001, is one of three international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The Genetics Prize honors lead ...

for his work on the ''Drosophila''

genome A genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as ...

and continues his work in investigating novel technological approaches to genetics, egg development and

stem cell In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can change into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of cell ...

s. He was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 2016. In 2024 he received the

Wiley Prize The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is intended to recognize breakthrough research in pure or applied life science research that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. ...

.Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences 2024
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spradling, Allan C. Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people American geneticists University of Chicago alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Howard Hughes Medical Investigators 1949 births Members of the American Philosophical Society