Vernonica "Noni" Elsa Franklin-Tong is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

plant cell

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

who is Emeritus

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

. She is known for her studies on

self-incompatibility Self-incompatibility (SI) is a general name for several genetic mechanisms that prevent self-fertilization in sexually reproducing organisms, and thus encourage outcrossing and allogamy. It is contrasted with separation of sexes among individuals ...

in ''

Papaver rhoeas ''Papaver rhoeas'', with common names including common poppy, corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy, red poppy, and Odai, is an annual herbaceous species of flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae. It is native to north Afr ...

''. In 2021 she was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Early life and education

Franklin-Tong was born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. She was an undergraduate student at the

, where she majored in biological sciences. She remained at

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

for her graduate studies, where she completed a

PhD 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 ...

on the genetics of self-incompatibility in ''

'' in 1986.

Research and career

Franklin-Tong was awarded a

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds science, scient ...

(BBSRC) advanced fellowship. In 1997, she was appointed a lecturer at the

, and promoted to chair in 2004. Her research investigates the cellular mechanisms involved in the regulation of the cell-cell recognition system of

in ''

.'' Self-incompatibility prevents

inbreeding Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely genetic distance, related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genet ...

through the recognition and inhibition of a flower's own pollen, ultimately determining the

reproductive success Reproductive success is an individual's production of offspring per breeding event or lifetime. This is not limited by the number of offspring produced by one individual, but also the reproductive success of these offspring themselves. Reproduct ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s. Franklin-Tong developed an ''

in vitro ''In vitro'' (meaning ''in glass'', or ''in the glass'') Research, studies are performed with Cell (biology), cells or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called "test-tube experiments", these studies in ...

bioassay A bioassay is an analytical method to determine the potency or effect of a substance by its effect on animal testing, living animals or plants (''in vivo''), or on living cells or tissues (''in vitro''). A bioassay can be either quantal or quantit ...

that allowed for the first investigations into the

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

of self-incompatibility, unravelling the mechanisms that underpin the rejection of pollen that is not compatible. She identified an intricate intracellular signalling network that regulates this self-incompatibility and culminates in cell death. The pollen S-determinant (PrpS) can be functionally expressed in ''

Arabidopsis thaliana ''Arabidopsis thaliana'', the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small plant from the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Eurasia and Africa. Commonly found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land, it is generally ...

'', a model plant that is self-compatibile. When transgenic ''Arabidopsis thaliana'' pollen is exposed to recombinant ''Papaver rhoeas'' a similar response occurs to those detected in incompatible ''Papaver rhoeas'' pollen. This indicates that PrpS is a species with no self-incompatibility that diverged over one hundred million years ago.

Selected publications

* * * *

Personal life

Franklin-Tong was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Franklin-Tong, Vernonica Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Scientists from London English biologists Fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of the University of Birmingham Academic staff of Umeå University