Professor Enrico Coen
Group Leader Fellow of the Royal Society Genes in the Environment, Research & Impact
How do small groups of cells in microscopic buds turn themselves into the diverse flower and leaf shapes we see around us?
To answer this question we need to know how genes and growth interact to create tissue shapes during development, and how this process varies to produce such a remarkable range of forms.
The Coen lab use a highly integrative approach that combines molecular, genetic, imaging, population, ecological and computational approaches to address this problem, applying them to model systems such as Arabidopsis and Antirrhinum, as well as the model carnivorous plant Utricularia.
The Coen lab was also involved in the 100 trillion miracles work with Professor Cristobal Uauy.
In his spare-time Enrico is a keen artist and paints portraits of all guest speakers at our Friday Seminar Named Lectures series. You can view a gallery of his speaker portraits here.
Selected Publications
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Bradley D., Xu P., Mohorianu I. I., Whibley A., Field D., Tavares H., Couchman M., Copsey L., Carpenter R., Li M., Li Q., Xue Y., Dalmay T., Coen E. (2017)Evolution of flower color pattern through selection on regulatory small RNAs.Science (358)Publisher's version: 0036-8075
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Whitewoods C. D., Pinto Goncalves B., Cheng J., Cui M., Kennaway R., Lee K., Bushell C., Yu M., Piao C., Coen E. (2020)Evolution of carnivorous traps from planar leaves through simple shifts in gene expression.Science (367)Publisher's version: 0036-8075
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Richardson AE,Cheng J,Johnston R,Kennaway R,Conlon BR,Rebocho AB,Kong H,Scanlon MJ,Hake S,Coen E (2021)Evolution of the grass leaf by primordium extension and petiole-lamina remodeling.Science (New York, N.Y.)Publisher's version: 0036-8075