Daisy Roulland-Dussoix

Daisy Roulland-Dussoix
Daisy Rouland-Dussoix
Born (1936-09-09)9 September 1936
Geneva, Switzerland
Died 5 January 2014(2014-01-05) (aged 77)
Lancy, Switzerland
Nationality Swiss
Fields Molecular biology
Institutions
Alma mater University of Geneva
Thesis Contrôle par la bactérie de l'acceptation d'acide désoxyribonucléique phagique. (Bacterial control over acceptance of phage deoxyribonucleic acid) (1964)
Doctoral advisor Werner Arber Eduard Kellenberger
Spouse Daniel Roulland

Daisy Roulland-Dussoix (1936 -2014) molecular microbiologist, was one of the discoverers of restriction enzymes during her doctoral studies, for which a Nobel prize was awarded to Werner Arber.

Education

Daisy Roulland-Dussoix (née Daisy Dussoix) gained her first degree in Chemistry and Biology from University of Geneva (1958), followed by her doctorate in Biophysics (1964).

Scientific career

She worked for her PhD with Werner Arber and Eduard Kellenberg, Swiss microbial geneticists, at the time when the barriers to infection of bacterial cells by virus (bacteriophage) first became apparent, leading to the discovery of restriction and modification enzymes that have subsequently became essential molecular biology tools.[1] These enzymes result in cleavage of DNA by enzymes at sites characterised by specific sequences unless these are protected by prior enzymatic modification to the DNA bases. This system protects bacterial cells from viral infection. The research of Grete Kellenberger-Gujer had already demonstrated that phage DNA could be degraded by host bacterial cells. Daisy Dussoix and Werner Arber showed that this process required enzymes, resulting in two publications that paved the way for discovery and isolation of the restriction and modification enzymes involved.[2][3] [4] They had previously presented these results at the First International Biophysics Congress in Stockholm in 1961.

In 1964 Dussoix moved to Stanford University, USA, funded by a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellowship to work with Robert Lehman. She subsequently worked as Assistant Professor in Residence in the Department of Microbiology from 1968 at the University of California, San Francisco and continued to study DNA restriction and modification with Herbert W Boyer.[2] She later worked with the research group of Harold E. Varmus on understanding how avian src protoncogenes worked.[5] She subsequently moved to the University of California, Berkeley.

In early 1980 Dussoix-Roulland returned to Europe and worked at the Institut Pasteur in Paris on detection of mycoplasmas using PCR-based molecular methods. She was appointed Group Head of the Mycoplasma Laboratory in 1987 in the Viral Oncology Unit of Luc Montagnier. Her publications from these years focused on mycobacterium and mycoplasmas, specifically genetic and molecular characterization and the development of detection methods.

Contributions and controversy over Nobel Prizes

Dussoix-Roulland was a member of the research groups of two future Nobel Prizewinners (Werner Arber (for discovery of restriction enzymes), and the group of Harold Varmus and J. Michael Bishop (for the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes). Her contribution to these discoveries, and whether she should have had greater recognition, has been a topic of controversy.[6]

Personal life

In 1964 she married Daniel Roulland, chef at The Star in San Francisco. In 1996 she contracted malaria and as a consequence suffered from long-term neurological problems. Following the death of her husband, she returned to Geneva in 2006, where she died in 2014.

Significant publications

References

  1. ↑ Arber, Werner (2010). "The 2009 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Werner Arber, physiology or medicine 1978.". J Vis Expt (JoVE). 10 (37): 1571. doi:10.3791/1571. PMC 3168210Freely accessible. PMID 20220745.
  2. 1 2 Cohen, Stanley N (September 24, 2013). "DNA cloning: A personal view after 40 years". PNAS. 110 (39): 15521–15529. doi:10.1073/pnas.1313397110.
  3. ↑ Arber, Werner; Dussoix, Daisy (1962). "Host specificity of DNA produced by Escherichia coli. I. Host controlled modification of bacteriophage lambda.". J. Mol. Biol. 5: 18–36.
  4. ↑ Dussoix, Daisy; Arber, Werner (1962). "Host specificity of DNA produced by Escherichia coli. II Control over acceptance of DNA from infecting phage lambda.". J. Mol. Biol. 5: 37–49.
  5. ↑ Varmus, Harold (2010). The Art and Politics of Science. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393304534.
  6. ↑ "Gender Discrimination: Daisy Roulland Dussoix". Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg Memorial Website. The Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg Trust. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
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