Awards

National Academies - 2007

National Academy of Sciences

National Academies - 2003

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Titled Professor - 2002 - 2008

Miller Chair in Plant Developmental Biology

About Mark Estelle

Mark Estelle attended the University of Alberta, where he earned a B.S. in genetics in 1978 and a Ph.D. in genetics in 1983. He is currently a professor of biology and holds the Miller Chair in Plant Biology at IU Bloomington. He was a research associate of the Michigan State University-U.S. Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory (1983-86).

A plant biologist, Estelle's research has uncovered numerous details of a previously unknown regulatory system for hormone action. His lab identified the receptor that binds the plant hormone auxin; the receptor was the missing link in the chain of events that controls plant growth and development. His group has also shown that the molecular mechanism by which this receptor works is unlike any previously described. Moreover, the regulatory mechanisms he discovered in plants revealed the existence of fundamental shared regulatory pathways in plants and animals, including humans. Estelle has published 83 papers on the genetic, molecular biological, and biochemical properties of fruit flies and Arabidopsis, and is the editor of the journal Plant Cell. He has been invited to give well over 100 talks about his work before academic and industry colleagues.

Estelle was awarded the revered Kumho International Science Award in Plant Molecular Biology in 2006 and was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003. He is additionally a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the university's 19th current member of NAS's parent organization, the National Academies.