John Doebley

John F. Doebley is an American botanical geneticist whose main area of interest is how genes drive plant development and evolution. He has spent the last two decades examining the genetic differences and similarities between teostine and maize and has cloned the major genes that cause the visible differences between these two very different plants.

John Doebley began his undergraduate education as a biology major at West Chester State College in West Chester, Pennsylvania. However, after taking a class by a particularly interesting lecturer, he decided to switch his major to anthropology.

After he graduated with a degree in anthropology in 1974, he entered a master's programme in anthropology at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. Upon completion of this in 1976, he underwent a Ph.D programme at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here he was fortunate enough to become acquainted with a botany professor, Hugh Iltis. Together they travelled to Mexico to find sites where Teostine grew. Doebley published 3 papers on this research for his doctoral thesis and completed his degree in 1980.

Doebley then held 2 postdoctoral positions successively in North Carolina State University under the mentorship of Major Goodman and Ronald Sederoff.

In 1987, Doebley took up the position of professor at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul. It was here that Doebley and his colleagues discovered that most trait differences between teostine and maize were under multigenic control. From here they focused on pinpointing and cloning one of the principle genes involved in the evolution of maize, known as teostine branched1, or tb1 and how this gene operated to produce more branches in teostine and fewer branches in maize.

In 1999, Doebly returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a professor. Here he has continued his work on teostine and maize.

Doebley’s work has earned him widespread recognition in the field of complex trait genetics, and he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002.