Mariana Wolfner

Wolfner became interested in biology as a child.[4] She decided to study at Cornell University because it was well known for genetics.[4] During her undergraduate degree she worked in Gerald Fink's laboratory, studying the control of amino acids in yeast, and graduated in 1974.[4][5] She moved to Stanford University for her graduate degree, where she was a doctoral student in the lab of David Hogness.[6] She was one of the first to use recombinant DNA to isolate the genes in Drosophila.[4] Wolfner pioneered the use of cDNA hybridisation to isolate the genes which respond to ecdysone during metamorphosis.[4]

Wolfner joined University of California, San Diego for a postdoctoral fellowship under the supervision of Bruce Baker.[4] Here she started to study the genes that are involved in sex determination of Drosophila. With Baker, Wolfner cloned the doublesex gene.[4]

Wolfner joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1983.[7] She has explored the mechanisms that are responsible for sex determination and development in Drosophila.[4] Wolfner has identified over two hundred of the drosophila seminal fluid proteins and their influence on physiology and behaviour.[8] She performed genetic ablation to identify the genes that encoded seminal fluid proteins.[4] She found that female drosophila store semen for a while before fertilisation, and become less interested in males after mating.[9] Wolfner found that during mating the seminal fluid proteins that were created in male accessory glands were transferred to females, and caused postmating changes.[10][11] She spent two years at the University of California, San Diego working on mutant phenotypes in seminal fluid proteins.[12]

In her extensive studies of the seminal fluid proteins of Drosophila,[1] Wolfner has uncovered new information about sexual conflict.[4] She showed that seminal fluid proteins that increase the egg-laying rate of females are beneficial for males, but can reduce the lifespan of the female drosophila.[4][13] Apc26Aa is one of the seminal fluid proteins that can cause these postmating changes in female drosophila.[9] She found that seminal fluid proteins can act as switches that activate physiology in the mated females.[14][15][16] Wolfner works with Laura Harrington on the identification of seminal fluid proteins in mosquitoes that are responsible for the transmission of the Zika and dengue viruses.[4][17]

She also works on the egg-to-embryo transition, after the oocyte is released and before it is activated to begin embryogenesis.[17] Wolfner demonstrated that the egg-to-embryo transition is not the same in drosophila and mammals.[4] In drosophila the oocyte is squeezed into the oviduct, whereas in mammals the sperm triggers the transition. She showed that the activation process in drosophila involves a spike of calcium, which triggers downstream pathways.[4]

She was appointed the Goldwin Smith Professor of Molecular Biology & Genetics in Cornell University in 2013.

• 2006 Elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS)[18]
• 2012 Cornell University Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Award for Distinguished Advising[19][20]
• 2016 Queen's University Al Downe Lecturer[21]
• 2017 Entomological Society of America Recognition Award in Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology[22]
• 2018 Genetics Society of America Medal[4][5]
• 2019 Elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)[2]