Anne Ferguson-Smith

Anne Carla Ferguson-Smith was born on 23 July 1961 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.[7] She was educated at the University of Glasgow[7] where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular biology. She moved to the biology department at Yale University to undertake a PhD identifying human Hox genes and characterising mammalian Hox clusters, supervised by Frank Ruddle.[8]

Ferguson-Smith conducted postdoctoral research with Azim Surani at the University of Cambridge from 1989 to 1994, where she initiated molecular studies on genomic imprinting - the process causing genes to be expressed according to their parental origin. The team identified one of the first endogenous imprinted genes, and showed that the process was epigenetically regulated by DNA methylation.[9][10]

Her subsequent research in the Department of Physiology Development and Neuroscience[11] (formerly Anatomy) at the University of Cambridge identified functions for, and regulatory mechanisms of, genomic imprinting, and contributed to its establishment as a model for understanding the epigenetic control of mammalian genome function.[12] This work resulted in the characterisation of pathways important in mammalian development and growth, in the regulation of metabolism, and in the control of adult neurogenesis.[13][14]

In 2013 she was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Genetics[15] at the University of Cambridge and became the seventh Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics in 2015. Her research continues to forge links between DNA sequence, epigenetic modifications and gene regulation, and their impact on phenotype; and the mechanisms and implications of epigenetic inheritance.[16]

Ferguson-Smith married Mark Gregory McHarg, whom she met at a Grateful Dead show, in 1988, with who she has a son and a daughter.[7] She is the daughter of Malcolm Ferguson-Smith, also a geneticist.[19]