Peter Anthony Lawrence
Peter Lawrence | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Peter Anthony Lawrence 23 June 1941[1] |
| Education | Wennington School |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) |
| Known for | Work on Drosophila melanogaster[2] |
| Spouse |
Birgitta Haraldson (m. 1971) |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge Laboratory of Molecular Biology |
| Thesis | The determination and development of hairs and bristles in the milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus Dall) (1966) |
| Doctoral advisor | Vincent Wigglesworth |
| Website | making-of-a-fly www |
Peter Anthony Lawrence FRS (born 23 June 1941) is a British developmental biologist and geneticist ORCID 0000-0002-9554-8268. He was a staff scientist of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology[3] from 1969 to 2006 and has worked in the Zoology Department of the University of Cambridge from 2006 to present.
Education
[edit]Lawrence was educated at Wennington School in Wetherby, and then at St Catharine's College, Cambridge; he gained his doctorate as a student of Vincent Wigglesworth for work on Oncopeltus fasciatus (milkweed bug).[4] His postdoc in the USA was funded by a Harkness Fellowship.
Career and research
[edit]Lawrence's main discoveries lie in trying to understand the information that shapes an animal or generates a pattern (such as on a butterfly wing or a fingerprint). He is a principal advocate of the theory that cells in a gradient of a morphogen each develop according to the local concentration of that morphogen and that this mechanism thereby patterns fields of cells. Together with Ginés Morata, he has helped establish the compartment theory. Under this hypothesis a set of cells collectively builds a precisely defined territory (or compartment) in the animal. As development proceeds, a selector gene switches on in a subset of these cells thus dividing the set into two, all the progeny of each set construct one of the two adjacent compartments.[5] Much of the evidence for the hypothesis comes from studies on the abdomen of Oncopeltus[6][7] and the Drosophila fly wing.[8]
Since the mid 1990s he has collaborated with José Casal, Gary Struhl, and others to study Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) and cell affinity. PCP is a common property of cells which can show coordinated polarity in the plane of the epithelia. PCP is often revealed by the consistent orientation of visible structures such as cuticular bristles in insects or hairs in mammals. Using the powerful genetics of Drosophila, particularly the ability to make genetic mosaics, Lawrence and his colleagues provided evidence that there are two separate molecular/genetic systems that build PCP. At the heart of each system is a gradient of a molecule that extends across the tissue. The local slopes of these gradients are detected by means of molecules that form intercellular bridges and are used to orient PCP in each cell.[9] [10] Casal, Lawrence and their group have now demonstrated and measured the two molecular gradients in vivo.[11] [12] His research was funded by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Leverhulme Trust.
Publications
[edit]Peter Lawrence's publications indexed by Google Scholar are also listed in his personal web site.[13]
Lawrence wrote the book The Making of a Fly in 1992,[2] which explains how the body plans of flies are constructed. Findings on the fly have strong implications for other animals such as mammals. The book received further “recognition” in April 2011 when fellow biologist Michael Eisen discovered two booksellers were programmatically setting increasingly higher prices for copies of the book on amazon.com used book market. Margrethe Vestager (European Commissioner for Competition) mentioned this event as an early example of algorithmic tacit collusion on March 16, 2017.[14][15] The sellers eventually priced copies over 23 million USD before the feedback loop was broken.[16][17][18][19]
Lawrence has also written many commentaries on the ethics of science practice,[20][21][22] as well as obituaries of Michael Berridge, Sydney Brenner, Francis Crick, and Ed Lewis.[23]
Awards and honours
[edit]Lawrence was awarded membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 1976;[24] he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1983;[25] awarded the Darwin Medal in 1994;[26] and with Ginés Morata was a recipient of the Prince of Asturias Prize for scientific research in 2007;[27] he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2000.[28]
Personal life
[edit]Lawrence married Birgitta Haraldson in 1971,[1] a clinical psychologist and expert on autism.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "LAWRENCE, Peter Anthony". Who's Who. Vol. 2013 (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ a b Lawrence, Peter (1992). The making of a fly: the genetics of animal design. Oxford: Blackwell Science. ISBN 978-0-632-03048-4.
- ^ John Finch; 'A Nobel Fellow on Every Floor', Medical Research Council 2008, 381 pp, ISBN 978-1-84046-940-0.
- ^ Lawrence, Peter A. (1966). "Development and determination of hairs and bristles in the milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus (Lygaeidae, Hemiptera)". Journal of Cell Science. 1 (4): 475–498. doi:10.1242/jcs.1.4.475. PMID 5956722.
- ^ Lawrence, P.A.; Struhl, G. (1966). "Morphogens, compartments and pattern: Lessons from Drosophila?". Cell. 85: 951–961. doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(00)81297-0.
- ^ Lawrence, P.A. (1971). "The organization of the insect segment". Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology. 25: 379–392.
- ^ Lawrence, P.A. (1973). "A clonal analysis of segment development in Oncopeltus (Hemiptera)". Journal of Embryology and Experimental Morphology. 30: 681–699.
- ^ Garcia-Bellido, A; et al. (1973). "Developmental compartmentalisation of the wing disk of Drosophila". Nature New Biology. 245: 251–253. doi:10.1038/newbio245251a0. hdl:10261/47426. PMID 4518369.
- ^ Lawrence, P.A.; et al. (2007). "Planar cell polarity: one or two pathways?". Nature Reviews Genetics. 8: 555–563. doi:10.1038/nrg2125. PMC 2747024.
- ^ Lawrence, P.A.; Casal, J. (2018). "Planar cell polarity: two genetic systems use one mechanism to read gradients". Development. 145: dev168229. doi:10.1242/dev.168229.
- ^ Chorro, A.; Verma, B.; et al. (2022). "Planar cell polarity: intracellular asymmetry and supracellular gradients of Dachsous". Open Biology. 12: 20195. doi:10.1098/rsob.220195. PMC 9554717.
- ^ Casal, J; et al. (2023). "Planar cell polarity: intracellular asymmetry and supracellular gradients of Frizzled". Open Biology. 13: 230105. doi:10.1098/rsob.230105. PMC 10264100.
- ^ "Lawrence's Publications".
- ^ Vestager, Margrethe (2017). "Algorithms and competition" (Bundeskartellamt 18th Conference on Competition). European Commission. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
- ^ Verdugo, Catalina González (13 June 2018). "Horizontal Restraint Regulations in the EU and the US in the Era of Algorithmic Tacit Collusion". Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. doi:10.14324/111.2052-1871.098.
- ^ Sutter, John (25 April 2011). "Amazon seller lists book at $23,698,655.93 -- plus shipping". CNN. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
- ^ Farrell, Nick (25 April 2011). "Amazon listed text book for $23 million – Sellers using Algorithms to set prices". Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
- ^ Eisen, Michael (22 April 2011). "Amazon's $23,698,655.93 book about flies". it is NOT junk: (blog of Michael Eisen). Retrieved 26 April 2011.
- ^ Solon, Olivia. "How A Book About Flies Came To Be Priced $24 Million On Amazon". Wired. Retrieved 5 February 2025.
- ^ Lawrence, P. A. (2006). "Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science". PLOS Biology. 4 (1): e19. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0040019. PMC 1326282. PMID 16535774.
- ^ Lawrence, P. A. (2009). "Real Lives and White Lies in the Funding of Scientific Research". PLOS Biology. 7 (9): e1000197. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000197. PMC 2735719. PMID 19753105.
- ^ Lawrence, P. A. (2003). "The politics of publication". Nature. 422 (6929): 259–261. doi:10.1038/422259a. PMID 12646895. S2CID 5304061.
- ^ "Obituaries, book reviews, squibs, etc ..."
- ^ "EMBO member: Peter A. Lawrence". people.embo.org.
- ^ "Fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1983".
- ^ "Fellows Directory: Dr Peter Lawrence FRS".
- ^ "Princess of Asturias Foundation".
- ^ "Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Members".
