Royal Alexander Brink (16 September 1897 – 2 October 1984), also known as R. A. Brink, was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

-born

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

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 plant breeder at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

Professional background

Brink was instrumental to the beginning of the Wisconsin maize breeding program during the 1920s. He also served as chair of the Department of

Genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1939 through 1951. His scientific achievements include the discovery of

paramutation In epigenetics, a paramutation is an interaction between two alleles at a single locus, whereby one allele induces a heritable change in the other allele. The change may be in the pattern of DNA methylation or histone modifications. The allele ind ...

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

and the study of

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 ...

s. Brink was also very interested in

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, creating new varieties of

clover Clovers, also called trefoils, are plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with the highest diversit ...

and

alfalfa Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial plant, perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, ...

during his career. Brink was awarded many honors during his lifetime. He was elected to the

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 ...

in 1947. He was also an editor of the

Genetics Society of America The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is a scholarly membership society of more than 5,500 genetics researchers and educators, established in 1931. The Society was formed from the reorganization of the Joint Genetics Sections of the American Soc ...

's journal, ''

,'' from 1952 through 1957 and served as president of the society in 1957. Brink is the subject of a posthumous biographical memoir by his fellow geneticists Oliver E. Nelson, Jr., and Ray D. Owen and published by the National Academy of Sciences. Brink was doctoral advisor to

Esther Lederberg Esther Miriam Zimmer Lederberg (December 18, 1922 – November 11, 2006) was an American microbiologist and a pioneer of bacterial genetics. She discovered the bacterial virus lambda phage and the bacterial fertility factor F, devised the f ...

, a pioneer in bacterial genetics and molecular genetics.

References

External links

National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brink, R.A. 1897 births 1984 deaths Canadian geneticists University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Canadian expatriate academics in the United States Canadian emigrants to the United States Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Genetics (journal) editors Presidents of the American Society of Naturalists