Interview: Dame Ottoline Leyser

Plant geneticist Dame Ottoline Leyser talks to Alison Woollard about the difference between working with animal and plant genomes, and her work to make science more inclusive

The Biologist 64(4) p16-19

Dame Ottoline Leyser is a professor of plant development at the University of Cambridge. She directs the Sainsbury Laboratory, which aims to better understand the regulatory systems underlying plant growth and development.

After a PhD in genetics from Cambridge in 1990, Dame Ottoline worked in research positions at Indiana University and the University of York. Her group at Cambridge focuses on the role of plant hormones in the plasticity of plant development.

In the 2017 New Year honours, Leyser was made a dame (DBE) for services to plant science, science in society, and equality and diversity in science. The Biologist's Alison Woollard, who works on development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans at the University of Oxford, caught up with Dame Ottoline to discuss recent developments in plant science, GM crops and UK politics.

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