Caroline Dean

Dame Caroline Dean (born 2 April 1957) is a British plant scientist working at the John Innes Centre. She is focused on understanding the molecular controls used by plants to seasonally judge when to flower. She has also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize from 2018.

Education Dean was educated at the University of York, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology in 1978 and a PhD in Biology

Research and career Dean's research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) European Research Council (ERC), EU-Marie Curie and EMBO and focuses on research on gene regulation and the intersection of chromatin, transcription and non-coding RNAs. Her goal is to understand the chromatin dynamics that enable switching between epigenetic states and quantitative regulation of gene expression. This mechanistic analysis is focused on one gene encoding the floral repressor Flowering Locus C: FLC. Epigenetic switching and quantitative regulation of FLC play a central role in seasonal timing in plants. This acceleration of flowering by prolonged cold is a classic epigenetic process called vernalisation.

Awards and honours Her nomination for the Royal Society reads: centered Dean has made outstanding contributions in the study of developmental timing in plants. Her work has revealed the mechanism by which plants remember they have experienced winter, demonstrated novel RNA processing mechanisms controlling flowering and determined the molecular basis of natural variation in Arabidopsis flowering time. Her discoveries have broad significance in the fields of epigenetics, post-transcriptional regulation and molecular evolution. Dean has also made a massive contribution to the development of Arabidopsis as a model, establishing resources for genetic mapping and insertional mutagenesis, and providing physical maps that underpinned the sequencing of the genome. 2008 – elected a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina 2015 – Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS)/European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Women in Science Award 2016 – Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to plant science research and women in science. 2016 – Dean was awarded with the Darwin Medal by the Royal Society for her work addressing fundamental questions in the perception of temperature cues and how modifications in epigenetic mechanisms play an important role in adaptation. 2018 – Awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award 2020 – Received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture. 2020 – Awarded the Royal Medal by the Royal Society 2023 – Awarded the Mendel Medal by The Genetics Society

Personal life Dean married to Jonathan D. G. Jones in 1991 and has one son and one daughter.