biology

Lorna Casselton

Lorna Casselton is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lorna Casselton rather than just read about it. In short: Lorna Ann Casselton, (18 July 1938 – 14 February 2014) was a British academic and biologist. She was Professor Emeritus of Fungal Genetics in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Oxford, and was known for her genetic and molecular analysis of the mushroom Coprinus cinereus and Coprinus lagopus.

Key takeaways

Lorna Casselton belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lorna Casselton to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lorna Casselton from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lorna Ann Casselton, (18 July 1938 – 14 February 2014) was a British academic and biologist. She was Professor Emeritus of Fungal Genetics in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Oxford, and was known for her genetic and molecular analysis of the mushroom Coprinus cinereus and Coprinus lagopus.

Early life Casselton was born on 18 July 1938 in Rochford, Essex to William Charles Henry Smith and Cecile Smith (née Bowman). Her parents' smallholding and her father's interest in natural history and genetics encouraged her and her sister Pauline in the direction of biology. She was educated at Southend High School for Girls, a grammar school in Southend-on-Sea. She studied at University College London, from which she gained a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in botany and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1964.

Academic career Casselton began her career in lecturing and research as an assistant lecturer at Royal Holloway College in London. She was Professor of Genetics at Queen Mary University of London from 1989 to 1991 and was later awarded an AFRC/BBSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, followed by a BBSRC Senior Research Fellowship in 1995. Casselton was a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford from 1993 to 2003, and was appointed Professor of Fungal Genetics at Oxford in 1997. Her specialism was sexual development in fungi and she contributed to over 100 publications on this topic. She was a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, from 1993 to 2003, and an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, from 2000. She was a member of the Royal Society's Council from 2002 to 2003, and rejoined the Council in 2006 as Vice-President and Foreign Secretary, replacing Professor Dame Julia Higgins. As Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Casselton gave the Royal Society Rutherford Lecture in South Africa and the Blackett Lecture in India, travelling to 27 different countries during three and a half years in office.

Personal life She married Peter John Casselton in 1961, divorcing him in 1978. She married William Joseph Dennis Tollett in 1981. She died after a short illness, aged 75.

Awards and honours She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999. She became a Member of the Academia Europaea in 2008, and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by Queen Mary College, University of London in 2009 and University College London in September 2010. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to fungal genetics and international science. Her nomination for the Royal Society reads: Distinguished for her genetical and molecular analysis of the mushroom Coprinus cinereus, in particular of the incompatibility mating type factors, A and B. She made diploids which she used to demonstrate for the first time that hyphal fusion, nuclear migration, the formation of a dikaryon ending in sexual reproduction are all controlled by a positive stimulus triggered by the meeting of unlike alleles of the A and B factors. This is in contrast to the oppositional inhibition of the final stages of sexual reproduction by the meeting of like alleles in flowering plants. Using elegant genetic and molecular techniques with different genetic stocks including gene deletions and gene fusions, she has shown that the A factor is a supergene of several multiallelic genes encoding proteins with homeodomains binding to DNA. These trigger sexual development by the association of A proteins with different homeodomains sequences (HD1 and HD2). A factors contain several duplicate genes coding for the A protein but it is only necessary for any one of these genes to be allelic unmatched to trigger the whole sexual development. Other domains characteristic of transcription factors found in mammalian cells suggest that helical regions adjacent to the homeodomain may discriminate between compatible and incompatible protein associations. The British Mycological Society awarded her an Honorary Membership in 2002.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lorna Casselton

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lorna Casselton claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lorna Casselton before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lorna Casselton ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lorna Casselton

In research: Lorna Casselton appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lorna Casselton in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lorna Casselton is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1938 births, 2014 deaths, 20th-century British women biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lorna Casselton outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lorna Casselton in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lorna Casselton means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lorna Casselton out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lorna Casselton in simple terms?

Why does Lorna Casselton matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lorna Casselton?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lorna Casselton.