Mark Chase (1951-)

The main focus of Professor Mark Chase’s research is on classifying orchids by comparing DNA sequences. These techniques are now used by scientists all over the world for unravelling the relationships of plants. A global effort to determine relationships between all known flowering plants is coordinated by Kew.

Until a few decades ago only the physical appearance and development of plants guided how taxonomists classified species. More recently, many sophisticated techniques have refined the study. Today, genetic analysis enables scientists to correct ideas of relatedness, and also to deduce the order in which groups of plants diverged from each other as they evolved.

Would you have guessed that orchids and asparagus are closely related? There have been many discoveries that have generated great excitement about the power of DNA analysis to reveal secrets from the distant evolutionary past.

Kew’s DNA researchers are based at the Jodrell Laboratory, near the Alpine House. Chase, ‘among the most prominent and successful scientists to have worked at Kew’ in the words of Peter Crane, has been appointed Keeper of the Jodrell from August 2006.

Fellow of the Royal Society 2003

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