Daniel Voytas is an American geneticist who is Professor of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

and Director of the Center for Precision Plant Genomics. In addition to his position at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Voytas co-founded Calyxt, an agricultural biotechnology company that used gene editing for crop improvement and launched the world’s first gene edited food ingredient. In 2019, Dr. Voytas was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Biography

Voytas earned a Ph.D. in genetics from

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

under the supervision of Frederick M. Ausubel. His graduate work focused on studying

transposable element 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 ...

s in plants. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at

Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he remained for mos ...

with Jef Boeke; his work focused on several

retrotransposon Retrotransposons (also called Class I transposable elements) are mobile elements which move in the host genome by converting their transcribed RNA into DNA through reverse transcription. Thus, they differ from Class II transposable elements, or ...

s in

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom (biology), kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are est ...

and helped clarify the molecular mechanisms by which retrotransposons select chromosomal integration sites. In 1992, Voytas joined the faculty at Iowa State University. He was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and to Professor in 2001. In 2008, he joined the faculty in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development at the University of Minnesota. Voytas is best known for his pioneering work to develop methods for precisely altering DNA sequences in living cells, enabling detailed functional analysis of genes and genetic pathways. Dan's work has enabled efficient methods for targeted genome modification of plants using sequence-specific nucleases. Using zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), TAL effector nucleases (TALEN), and the

CRISPR/Cas9 Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9, formerly called Cas5, Csn1, or Csx12) is a 160 kilodalton protein which plays a vital role in the immunological defense of certain bacteria against DNA viruses and plasmids, and is heavily utilized in genetic ...

system, Dan has achieved targeted gene knockouts, replacements and insertions in a variety of plant species. This type of targeted genome modification has applications ranging from understanding plant gene function to developing crop plants with new traits of value. Dr. Voytas’ lab is currently developing methods for plant gene editing to advance basic biology and develop new crop varieties.

Recognition

Voytas ha
co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and holds a number of patents relating to genome editing and plant biotechnology
Voytas is a member of th

as well as an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The use of genetic engineering to modify crop plants was selected as one of MIT's 10 breakthrough technologies for the year 2015.

Selected publications

* Cermak T, Starker CG, Voytas DF. (2015) Efficient design and assembly of custom TALENs using the Golden Gate platform. ''Methods Mol Biol.'' 1239:133-159. * Gil-Humanes J, Voytas DF. (Sept. 2014) Wheat rescued from fungal disease. ''Nat Biotechnol.'' 32(9):886-7. * Baltes N.J., Gil-Humanes J., Cermak T., Atkins P.A. and Voytas D.F. (2014) DNA Replicons for Plant Genome Engineering. ''Plant Cell'' 26: 151-63 * Qi Y., Zhang Y., Zhang F., Baller J.A., Cleland S.C., Ryu Y., Starker C.G. and Voytas D.F. (2013) Increasing frequencies of site-specific mutagenesis and gene targeting in Arabidopsis by manipulating DNA repair pathways. ''Genome Res.'' 23: 547-54 * Zhang Y., Zhang F., Li X., Baller J.A., Qi Y., Starker C.G., Bogdanove A.J. and Voytas D.F. (2013) TALENs enable efficient plant genome engineering. ''Plant Physiol'' 161: 1-8 * Baller J.A., Gao J. and Voytas D.F. (2011) Access to DNA establishes a secondary target site bias for the yeast retrotransposon Ty5. ''Proc Natl Acad Sci USA'' 108: 20351-6 * Baller J.A., Gao J., Stamenova R., Curcio M.J. and Voytas D.F. (2012) A nucleosomal surface defines an integration hotspot for the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ty1 retrotransposon. ''Genome Res'' 22: 704-13 * Cermak T., Doyle E.L., Christian M., Wang L., Zhang Y., Schmidt C., Baller J.A., Somia N.V., Bogdanove A.J. and Voytas D.F. (2011) Efficient design and assembly of custom TALEN and other TAL effector-based constructs for DNA targeting. Nucleic Acids Res 39: e82 Christian, M., Cermak, T., Doyle, E., Schmidt, C., Zhang, F., Hummel, A., Bogdanove, A.J. and Voytas D.F. (2010) Targeting DNA double-strand breaks with TAL effector nucleases. ''Genetics'' 186: 757-6

References

External links

Calyxt
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voytas, Daniel University of Minnesota faculty American geneticists Harvard Medical School alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)