Denise P. Barlow — British geneticist and pioneer of genomic imprinting

Research focus and key discoveries

Barlow's laboratory investigated how chemical and transcriptional marks established during development can cause one parental copy of a gene to be expressed while the other is repressed. Her identification of the imprinted IGF2R (insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor) locus was among the first demonstrations that mammalian genes can be subject to parental-specific expression. She also helped reveal the role of long noncoding antisense RNAs and DNA methylation in maintaining these imprinted states.

Methods, mechanisms and significance

Her work connected molecular mechanisms — such as differential DNA methylation, chromatin modification and antisense transcription — to biological outcomes including growth regulation and developmental control. These insights proved important for interpreting developmental disorders and some cancers in which imprinting or epigenetic regulation is disrupted. Barlow's studies helped establish genomic imprinting as a fundamental epigenetic phenomenon in mammals.

Key aspects of her contribution include:

• Discovery and characterization of an imprinted mammalian gene (IGF2R).
• Demonstration of antisense long noncoding RNA involvement in imprinting control.
• Advancing the broader field of epigenomics by linking molecular marks to gene regulation.

Her findings have had lasting influence on genetics, developmental biology and epigenetics research, informing both basic science and clinical perspectives on imprinting disorders.

Barlow was recognized internationally: she was an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and served as an honorary professor of genetics at the University of Vienna. In 2014 she received the Erwin Schrödinger Prize from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Denise Barlow died of pancreatic cancer on 21 October 2017 in Vienna, Austria, leaving a strong legacy in epigenetics and imprinting research.