Jeffrey Bennetzen
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Jeffrey Lynn Bennetzen is an American
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 ...
on the faculty of the
University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...
(UGA). Bennetzen is known for his work describing codon usage bias in yeast, and ''E. coli''; being the first to clone and sequence an active transposon in plants,Hitt, E. (2004). Biography of Jeffrey L. Bennetzen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(34), 12402-12403. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0405476101 discovering that most of the DNA in plant genomes was a particular class of mobile DNA (LTR-retrotransposons); solving the C-value paradox; proposing sorghum and Setaria as model grasses; showing that rice centromeres were hotspots for recombination, but not crossovers; and developing a technique to date polyploidization events. He is an author, with Sarah Hake of the book "Handbook of Maize." Bennetzen was elected to the
US National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...
in 2004.


Education

After his 1970 graduation from Upland High School in Upland, California, he received his bachelor's degree in biology from the
University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...
in 1974 and his doctoral degree in biochemistry from the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
in 1980. He was a postdoctoral fellow from 1980 through 1981 on a joint project between
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...
,
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
and the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
. From 1981 to 1983 he was a research scientist at the International Plant Research Institute.


Career

In 1983, Bennetzen became an assistant professor at
Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...
, becoming a full professor in 1991 and H. Edwin Umbarger Distinguished Professor of Genetics in 1999. After two decades at Purdue, he joined the faculty at UGA in 2003 as a Professor of Genetics,
Georgia Research Alliance The Georgia Research Alliance is an Atlanta, Georgia-based nonprofit organization that coordinates research efforts between Georgia's public and private sectors. While the GRA receives a state appropriation for investment in university-based researc ...
Eminent Scholar, and Giles Chair in Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics. He was interim head of the Department of Genetics at UGA from 2009–2011. He is also an adjunct member of UGA's interdisciplinary Institute of Bioinformatics and Department of Plant Biology. He founded the Maize Genetics Executive Committee (2000) and the McClintock Prize (2014). From 2012–2016, he was a 1000 Talents Professor in the
Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...
at the
Kunming Institute of Botany Kunming Institute of Botany, or KIB (), founded in 1938, is a research institution in the field of Botany, which is located in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, China. The Institute is one of the major herbariums in China and maintains a co ...
. In 2016, he established labs at
Anhui Agricultural University Anhui Agricultural University (AHAU; ) is a provincial public university in Hefei, Anhui, China. It is affiliated with the Anhui Provincial Government, and co-sponsored by the Anhui Provincial People's Government, the Ministry of Agriculture an ...
and the Yunnan Academy of Forestry to study the molecular genetics of tea (''Camellia sinensis'') and two Chinese native oil trees, ''Camellia oleifera'' and ''Malania oleifera''.


Research focuses

Bennetzen's research interests include plant genome structure/evolution and gene function relationships, transposable element (TE) biology, genetic diversity in under-utilized crops of the developing world, rapid evolution of complex disease resistance loci in plants, recombinational analysis, the coevolution of plant/microbe and plant/parasite interactions, the genetic basis of quality traits in tea and other important crops, and soil/root microbiomics. His lab was the first to clone an active TE from plants (1982); to show that classic disease resistance genes in plants are both recombinationally unstable and cell autonomous (1988); to use DNA probes from one grass species to map another genome (maize, sorghum), demonstrating genetic collinearity (1990); to show that DNA TEs preferentially insert into hypomethylated DNAs in or near genes (1995); to demonstrate that the majority of plant genomes is composed of LTR-retrotransposons (1996); to show the microcolinearity of plant genomes (1997), and the nature/rate/origin of exceptions to microcolinearity (1999); to explain the timing and mode of both plant genome expansion (1998) and contraction (2002); to show that plant centromeres are hot spots for recombination but not crossing over (2006); to show apparent site-directed recombination in plants (at a disease resistance gene) (2008); to use centromere gain/loss to determine the origin of plant chromosomes (in maize) (2012); to demonstrate a nuclear gain in a teosinte of about 2 Gb of DNA by TE amplification in less than 2 million years (2013); to demonstrate that errors in mismatch base repair may be the most common origin of DNA double strand breaks in plants (2014); to demonstrate domestication-associated changes in root and rhizosphere microbiomes (2018); and to develop the first universal technique to date the origins of allopolyploidy (2020).


Education and honors

*
Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
, Biology, Highest Honors,
University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...
, 1974 *
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 ...
, Biochemistry,
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
, 1980 * Presidential Young Investigator Award,
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
, 1986 * McKnight Foundation Award in Plant Biology, 1986 * Fulbright Awards, 1990 & 2008 *
Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is an international non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a faculty member and graduate students in 1886 and is one of the oldest ...
Faculty Research Award, Purdue University, 1995 * Umbarger Endowed Professorship in Genetics, 1999 * Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Centenary Professorship, University of Hyderabad, 2002 * Member,
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
, 2004 *
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
, 2008 * 1000 Overseas Talents Award, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2012 * Lamar Dodd Creative Research Medal, University of Georgia, 2014 * Yunnan Province Overseas Talent Award, 2015 * Dist. Visiting Researcher Award, CSIRO, Australia, 2017 * Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), 2020


References


UGA Genetics Department Biography''UGA professor Jeffrey Bennetzen named to National Academy of Sciences'', Scienceblog.com, April 2004Bennetzen Research Group website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennetzen, Jeffrey Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American geneticists University of Georgia faculty University of Washington alumni Year of birth missing (living people) University of California, San Diego alumni Washington University in St. Louis fellows Purdue University faculty Upland High School alumni