Michael Freeling is an American geneticist and plant biologist. He is currently a professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Fran ...
. He is known for early work on
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn ( North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. ...
anaerobic metabolism, developmental genetics of the maize ligule, proposing the grasses as a single genetic system model with
Jeffrey Bennetzen
Jeffrey Lynn Bennetzen is an American geneticist on the faculty of the University of Georgia (UGA). Bennetzen is known for his work describing codon usage bias in yeast, being the first to clone and sequence an active transposon in maize,Hitt, E ...
, and the discovery of biased gene retention following whole genome duplications in plants. In 1994 Freeling was elected to the
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 Nat ...
. In 2017 he was awarded the
McClintock Prize
The McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies is a prize awarded in genetics and genomics. The Prize is awarded by the Maize Genetics Executive Committee, and is presented to the Prize winner each spring at the Annual Maize Genetics ...
for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies.
Education and career
Freeling was born in Portland, Oregon in 1945. He attended the
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
graduating with an A.B. in 1968. He then join Drew Schwartz's research group at the University of Indiana where he also worked with
Marcus Rhoades
Marcus Morton Rhoades (July 24, 1903 in Graham, Missouri – December 30, 1991) was an American cytogeneticist.
Education
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1927, a Master of Science degree in 1928 from the University of Michigan and a P ...
. Completing his PhD in 1973 he was hired by the University of California, Berkeley as an Assistant Professor of Genetics. Freeling was promoted to Associate Professor in 1979, and to full professor in 1984.
In 1980 he was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow which supported his time as a visiting professor at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, in England
Research
Abiotic Stress
In the 1980 Freeling found an early response to anaerobic conditions is the suppression of the translation of mRNAs. After several hours a small group of anaerobic peptides including
alcohol dehydrogenase
Alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) () are a group of dehydrogenase enzymes that occur in many organisms and facilitate the interconversion between alcohols and aldehydes or ketones with the reduction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) to N ...
s are produced instead. He also found that the cytoplasmic acidosis was a good predictor of how poorly plants can tolerate flooding stress.
Comparative Genomics
Freeling and
Jeffrey Bennetzen
Jeffrey Lynn Bennetzen is an American geneticist on the faculty of the University of Georgia (UGA). Bennetzen is known for his work describing codon usage bias in yeast, being the first to clone and sequence an active transposon in maize,Hitt, E ...
proposed the model of the grasses as a single genetic system. Freeling developed tools for identifying
conserved non-coding sequence
A conserved non-coding sequence (CNS) is a DNA sequence of noncoding DNA that is evolutionarily conserved. These sequences are of interest for their potential to regulate gene production.
CNSs in plants and animals are highly associated with tra ...
s in plant genomes and has played a role in sequencing the genomes of
papaya
The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus '' Carica'' of the family Caricaceae. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within modern-day southern Mexico and ...
,
sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family ( Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many ot ...
,
banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry (botany), berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, Cooking banana, bananas used for ...
,
Brassica rapa
''Brassica rapa'' is a plant species growing in various widely cultivated forms including the turnip (a root vegetable); napa cabbage, bomdong, bok choy, and rapini.
''Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''oleifera'' is an oilseed which has many common ...
,
pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centurie ...
and
strawberry
The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely a ...
.
Freeling's research group also studies
ancient whole genome duplications. He identified biased gene loss between duplicated regions of the arabidopsis genome. In maize they found that genes on the copy of the genome had lost more genes tended to be expressed at lower levels than duplicate copies of the same genes on the copy of the genome which had lost fewer genes.
Trainees
Between 1973 and 2014 Freeling was the mentor for 27 PhD students and 49 postdocs, including three who went on to also be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
*
Julia Bailey-Serres
Julia Bailey-Serres is professor of genetics, director of the Center for Plant Cell Biology, and a member of the Institute for Integrative Genome Biology at the University of California, Riverside. Her accomplishments include the pioneering of m ...
Professor at
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. Th ...
and National Academy Member
*
Jeffrey Bennetzen
Jeffrey Lynn Bennetzen is an American geneticist on the faculty of the University of Georgia (UGA). Bennetzen is known for his work describing codon usage bias in yeast, being the first to clone and sequence an active transposon in maize,Hitt, E ...
Professor at
University of Georgia
, mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things."
, establ ...
and National Academy Member
*
Sarah Hake Professor at
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
and National Academy Member
*
Robert A. Martienssen
Robert Anthony Martienssen (born December 21, 1960) is a British plant biologist, Howard Hughes Medical Institute– Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation investigator, and professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, US.
Education
Robert Marti ...
HHMI Investigator at
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, and quantitative biology.
It is one of 68 institutions supported by the Cancer Centers ...
*
Neelima Sinha Professor at
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freeling, Michael
Indiana University alumni
University of Oregon alumni
People from Fort Wayne, Indiana
University of California, Berkeley College of Natural Resources faculty
American geneticists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
1945 births
Living people