Mariana Wolfner

Early life and education Wolfner became interested in biology as a child. She decided to study at Cornell University because it was well known for genetics. During her undergraduate degree she worked in Gerald Fink's laboratory, studying the control of amino acids in yeast, and graduated in 1974. She moved to Stanford University for her graduate degree, where she was a doctoral student in the lab of David Hogness. She was one of the first to use recombinant DNA to isolate the genes in Drosophila. Wolfner pioneered the use of cDNA hybridisation to isolate the genes which respond to ecdysone during metamorphosis. She has explored the mechanisms that are responsible for sex determination and development in Drosophila. She performed genetic ablation to identify the genes that encoded seminal fluid proteins. Wolfner found that during mating the seminal fluid proteins that were created in male accessory glands were transferred to females, and caused postmating changes. She spent two years at the University of California, San Diego working on mutant phenotypes in seminal fluid proteins.

In her extensive studies of the seminal fluid proteins of Drosophila, Apc26Aa is one of the seminal fluid proteins that can cause these postmating changes in female drosophila. Wolfner works with Laura Harrington on the identification of seminal fluid proteins in mosquitoes that are responsible for the transmission of the Zika and dengue viruses.

She also works on the egg-to-embryo transition, after the oocyte is released and before it is activated to begin embryogenesis. 2012 Cornell University Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Award for Distinguished Advising 2016 Queen's University Al Downe Lecturer 2017 Entomological Society of America Recognition Award in Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology 2018 Genetics Society of America Medal