Enrico Coen

John Innes Centre

Talk title: Role of Mechanics in Coordination of Cell Behaviour in Plants

Professor Enrico Coen was born in Liverpool in 1957 and obtained a PhD in molecular genetics at Cambridge University in 1982.  After a postdoc at Cambridge, he moved to the John Innes Centre, Norwich in 1984 where he began using Antirrhinum as a model system to study plant development and evolution.  Based on the results of an extensive mutational screen, he proposed that the ground plan of a flower depends on the combinatorial action of homeotic genes acting along the radial and dorsoventral axes of the flower.  More recently, he has been using a combination of imaging and computational modelling to bridge the gaps between gene action, cell biology and development.  In addition to publishing in scientific journals, Enrico Coen has also tried to communicate some key principles in his area to a broad audience through articles in popular journals and in his books The Art of Genes and Cells to Civilizations, where he explores connections between science and art. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences.