Royal Alexander Brink

Royal Alexander Brink (16 September 1897 – 2 October 1984), also known as R. A. Brink, was a Canadian-born American plant geneticist and plant breeder at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is best known for discovering paramutation in maize, a phenomenon in which one allele induces a heritable change in another without altering DNA sequence.

Career and research

Brink joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin in 1922 and played a central role in establishing its maize genetics and breeding programs. and later elaborated in molecular and genetic detail. He demonstrated that interactions between alleles could lead to heritable changes in gene expression without changes in DNA sequence.

Honors and legacy Brink was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1947 He received numerous honors for his contributions to genetics and agriculture and trained more than fifty doctoral students, including Esther Lederberg.