J. Mark COCK

J. Mark Cock obtained his PhD from Leeds University in 1985 (UK) and worked for several years on nitrogen metabolism and nodulation in terrestrial plants in post-doctoral positions at the University of Florida (Gainsville, FL), at the University of Warwick (UK) and at the CNRS-INRA laboratory in Castanet, Toulouse (France). From 1992 to 2002 he led a group working on the molecular basis of cell-cell recognition during the self-incompatibility response in Brassica and on petal development at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (France). In 2002, he moved to the Station Biologique de Roscoff (France) where he initiated a project aimed at developing the filamentous brown alga Ectocarpus as a genetic and genomic model species for the phaeophyceae in order to study developmental processes in this phylogenetic group. This project included the sequencing and analysis of the 214 Mbp Ectocarpus genome, the first sequenced macroalgal genome. This work was carried out in collaboration with Genoscope and involved the coordination of a large international consortium. His current work is focused on the genetic and epigenetic control of developmental processes in Ectocarpus, in particular life cycle regulation, using genetic and genomic approaches. Major advances have included the cloning of the first brown algal developmental gene by forward genetics, the development of CRISPR-Cas9 gene knock-out methodology for Ectocarpus, the first analysis of chromatin modification dynamics in a macroalga, the identification of master regulators of the Ectocarpus life cycle and the description of brown algal sex chromosomes. Mark Cock has recently coordinated a large-scale project, Phaeoexplorer, that generated complete genome sequences for 44 species of brown algae and closely related stramenopiles. This project has provided a comprehensive genome-based view of the evolutionary history of the brown algal lineage.