Harris A. Lewin,[1] an American biologist, is a professor of evolution and ecology and Robert and Rosabel Osborne Endowed Chair at the University of California, Davis. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.[3] In 2011, Lewin won the Wolf Prize in Agriculture for his research into cattle genomics.[3][4] Lewin chairs the working group for the Earth BioGenome Project, a moonshot for biology that aims to sequence, catalog, and characterize the genomes of all of Earth’s eukaryotic biodiversity over a period of 10 years.[5] Lewin is a founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, first published in 2013.[6]
Harris Lewin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1957[1] Brooklyn, N.Y.[2] |
| Awards | Wolf Prize in Agriculture |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Cornell University University of California, Davis |
| Thesis | (1984) |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | University of Illinois University of California, Davis |
| Main interests | biologist |
| Notable ideas | genomics and immunogenetics |
Career
editLewin studied at Cornell University and earned his B.S. in Animal Science in 1979 and M.S. in Animal Breeding and Genetics in 1981. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of California, Davis in 1984.[7][1][8][9] He then worked at the University of Illinois.[3] In 2003, he served as the founding director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.[10][4] In 2009, he and a team of researchers fully sequenced the cow genome.[4]
Lewin served as vice chancellor for research at University of California, Davis from 2011 until 2016. In 2016 he returned to the faculty in the University of California, Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology and the Genome Center.[11] Lewin is a member of a group biologists that propose to sequence the DNA of all life on Earth.[12]
Lewin was senior author of a study that revealed one of the most prolific bulls in the history of Holstein cattle breeding, Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief, had a lethal gene mutation estimated to have caused half million spontaneous cow abortions worldwide.[13][14][15][16] Lewin collaborated with researchers from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in France for a study that used RNA-sequencing to highlight problems with gene expression in cloned cattle.[17] In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,[18] Lewin and his colleagues used an algorithm to computationally recreate the chromosomes of the first eutherian mammal, the long-extinct, shrewlike ancestor of all placental mammals.[19]
At the 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, Lewin announced a landmark partnership between the Earth BioGenome Project and the Earth Bank of Codes to map the DNA of all the planet’s eukaryotes, some 1.5 million known species.[20][21] Lewin was the lead author for a perspective paper published April 23, 2018 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Earth BioGenome Project: Sequencing life for the future of life."[5] In the paper, the 24 interdisciplinary experts who comprise the Earth BioGenome Project Working Group, outline a roadmap and rational for the project, which is estimated to cost $4.7 billion and take ten years.[5]
References
edit- ^ a b c Azar, Beth (20 December 2016). "Profile of Harris A. Lewin". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (51): 14468–14470. Bibcode:2016PNAS..11314468A. doi:10.1073/pnas.1618868114. PMC 5187711. PMID 27956630.
- ^ "Harris Lewin named director of Post Genomic Institute" (Press release). University of Illinois. 2 May 2003. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
- ^ a b c "Harris Lewin Elected to National Academy of Sciences" (Press release). Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. 30 April 2012. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
- ^ a b c "Illinois professor awarded 2011 Wolf Prize in Agriculture" (Press release). University of Illinois. 15 February 2011. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
- ^ a b c Lewin, Harris A.; Robinson, Gene E.; Kress, W. John; Baker, William J.; Coddington, Jonathan; Crandall, Keith A.; Durbin, Richard; Edwards, Scott V.; Forest, Félix; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Goldstein, Melissa M.; Grigoriev, Igor V.; Hackett, Kevin J.; Haussler, David; Jarvis, Erich D.; Johnson, Warren E.; Patrinos, Aristides; Richards, Stephen; Castilla-Rubio, Juan Carlos; van Sluys, Marie-Anne; Soltis, Pamela S.; Xu, Xun; Yang, Huanming; Zhang, Guojie (24 April 2018). "Earth BioGenome Project: Sequencing life for the future of life". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (17): 4325–4333. Bibcode:2018PNAS..115.4325L. doi:10.1073/pnas.1720115115. PMC 5924910. PMID 29686065.
- ^ "Introduction". Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. 1. 2013. doi:10.1146/annurev-av-1-012513-100001.
- ^ "Harris Lewin | College of Biological Sciences". biosci3.ucdavis.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-09-06.
- ^ "Harris A. Lewin, Ph.D." www.igb.illinois.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-08-12.
- ^ "Personnel, Laboratory of Mammalian Genome Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign". lewinlab.igb.uiuc.edu. Archived from the original on 2008-07-08.
- ^ "History". Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
- ^ "Research VC Lewin to Step Down". UC Davis. 9 February 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-27.
- ^ Pennisi, Elizabeth (24 February 2017). "Biologists propose to sequence the DNA of all life on Earth". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aal0824.
- ^ "How a Genetic Mutation From 1 Bull Caused the Loss of Half a Million Calves Worldwide" (Press release). UC Davis. 13 October 2016. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
- ^ Zhang, Sarah (31 October 2016). "The Dairy Industry Lost $420 Million From a Flaw in a Single Bull". The Atlantic.
- ^ Main, Douglas (15 November 2016). "One bull's genes gave 14 percent of U.S. dairy cows a deadly mutation". Newsweek.
- ^ "El ejemplar de toro que transformó la industria lechera mundial" [The bull that transformed the world dairy industry with 16,000 calves]. BBC News Mundo (in Spanish). 1 November 2016.
- ^ "Cow Gene Study Shows Why Most Clones Fail". UC Davis. 9 December 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-27.
- ^ Kim, Jaebum; Farré, Marta; Auvil, Loretta; Capitanu, Boris; Larkin, Denis M.; Ma, Jian; Lewin, Harris A. (3 July 2017). "Reconstruction and evolutionary history of eutherian chromosomes". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (27): E5379–E5388. Bibcode:2017PNAS..114E5379K. doi:10.1073/pnas.1702012114. PMC 5502614. PMID 28630326.
- ^ "Reconstruction of Ancient Chromosomes Offers Insight Into Mammalian Evolution". UC Davis. 21 June 2017. Retrieved 2017-07-27.
- ^ "Earth BioGenome Project to Sequence All Life". UC Davis. 23 January 2018. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
- ^ "New Partnership Aims to Sequence Genomes of All Life on Earth, Unlock Nature's Value, Tackle Bio-Piracy and Habitat Loss". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2018-09-06.