Dear Colleagues:
It is with great sadness that we write to report the death of our colleague,
Simon W.-L. Chan, an HHMI-Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator.
Simon, 38, passed away on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 after a brief illness.
He is survived by his parents, Avril and Robert Chan, and sister, Caron
Chan.
In June 2011, Simon was among the first plant scientists selected for the
inaugural class of investigators funded jointly by HHMI and the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation to support innovative research in the plant sciences.
He used plants to understand how chromosomes are inherited during cell
division. He discovered ways to dramatically speed up the breeding of plants
for desirable traits and developed new plant-breeding tools by manipulating
the properties of genetic inheritance. Working with the model plant
Arabidopsis thaliana, Simon’s laboratory discovered a way to breed plants
with genes from only one parent, making it possible to "breed true" without
generations of inbreeding. His most recent work concentrated on
understanding the functional consequences of rapid centromere evolution and
its potential role in creating new species.
Simon received his B.SC. from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and
his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. Simon carried
out his postdoctoral research at UCLA with HHMI investigator, Steven
Jacobsen. He joined the faculty of the Department of Plant Biology in the
College of Biological Sciences at UC, Davis in 2006.
Simon was honored with several awards, including the American Society of
Plant Biology Early Career Award and a Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Award
from the March of Dimes. He was an HHMI Predoctoral Fellow from 1997-2002
and a Life Sciences Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow from 2003 to
2006.
Simon will be remembered for his scientific brilliance, lively spirit, and
contributions to promoting plant science.
Sincerely,
Robert Tjian
Jack E. Dixon
President Vice
President and Chief Scientific Officer
