Blanche Capel

Blanche Capel is an American biologist and James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology at Duke University. Her research focuses on vertebrate sex determination.

Education After graduating with a BA in Literature and Art History from Hollins College, Capel married and focused on raising her children. She became interested in further study by the time her children reached school age and took various undergraduate classes at Haverford and Bryn Mawr College. Following two years in Haverford's molecular biology program, she started to work towards a PhD in genetics at the laboratory of Beatrice Mintz at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. She was awarded her PhD by the University of Pennsylvania in 1989.

Career Capel's first academic position was as a postdoc at the National Institute for Medical Research in the lab of Robin Lovell-Badge. She was president of the publisher of Developmental Biology, the Society for Developmental Biology, in 2017.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science elected her fellow in 2010, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences followed suit in 2020.

In 2025, Capel was awarded the Edwin G. Conklin Medal from the Society for Developmental Biology, which recognises extraordinary research contributions and mentorship in developmental biology in the USA.