About UChicago Argonne, LLC
Board of Governors
Daphne Preuss, Ph.D.
- Member, UChicago Argonne, LLC Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory
- Professor of Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology, The University of Chicago
Considered one of the world's foremost geneticists, Daphne Preuss has created a technology to insert chromosomes into plant cells. Her research focuses on plant pollination and the interaction of pollen and egg cells, using genetic and biochemical approaches to determine the mechanisms these cells use to recognize one another. It also explores the centromere, a part of plant chromosomes critical for cell division. Creating artificial chromosomes with functional centromeres permits introduction into cells of characteristics that are passed along when the cell divides.
Her work has ramifications for protecting farm land from drought and parasites, and could lead to growing medicine in plants. Applications, which may enable scientists to cross cold-resistant apple trees with those that bear tasty fruit or grow vaccines, are considered likely to have their greatest impact in developing countries where droughts, salt contamination, and pestilence threaten starvation, and where needles for vaccines are rare.
To develop applications, Preuss and two associates founded Chromatin Inc., a Chicago-based company. In 2004, Crain's Chicago Business named her one of its 40 rising business stars under age 40.
Preuss earned B.S. degrees, both summa cum laude, in chemistry and natural sciences from the University of Denver in 1985, and her Ph.D. from the Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990. She joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1995 after doing post-doctoral research at Stanford, where she received fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the American Cancer Society. She is an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Other honors she has received include a 1997 Searle Scholar award, the 1998 Junior Women in Cell Biology Award of the American Society of Cell Biology and designation as one of 20 young scientists to watch by Discover magazine.
Preuss was named to the Board of Governors for Argonne in 2003.
