Earlier this year, Professor Jenny  Graves moved her group of nearly 20 postdocs and students to join RSBS in Canberra.  She was invited to this position by the Director of RSBS, Professor John Hearn.  Graves was induced to move from La Trobe University by the potential to follow promising lines of research in a new, well-funded lab.  Some of the new work had been difficult to fund from competitive grants schemes.  She commutes each week to her home in the La Trobe valley where her immediate and extended family is based.  As ever, this means long hours in the lab, though now it’s to get the work done in her 4 days in Canberra each week.  But it means Graves can maintain collaborations with colleagues in Melbourne and see family on weekends.

Some prominent scientists showed a penchant for science early, but in primary school, Jenny Marshall was only sure that she did not want to be an air hostess!  Her parents were both scientists – her father was head of Soil Physics in the CSIRO, so science was something ordinary people did.  But she was encouraged to follow her interests; the science road was not promoted above others.  When Graves relayed the question from school about what she should be when she grew up, her parents said, well, you’re good at maths and art, what about Architect.  Her answer to this question switched to Meteorologist a few years later, after she topped the state in Geography.  The future seed was sown in her last year of high school when a very good biology teacher introduced Graves to genetics which, to her, was the most interesting and fun part of biology.

At the University of Adelaide, Graves was most fascinated by the more experiment-oriented aspects of genetics – gene structure and regulation, what we now call molecular biology.  Her second year was spent at UC Berkeley where her parents took sabbatical leave.  Here, Graves encountered Dan Mazia’s course on Physicochemical Biology which inspired her to continue taking courses in physical chemistry and genetics back in Adelaide.  Although an unusual course combination at the time, this would prove an excellent foundation for future work in molecular biology.  After Hons and MSc with David Hayman working on marsupials, her spontaneous reply to the question – what will you do next? was, oh, I’ll go and work with Dan Mazia at Berkeley.  Dan was a hero of cell biology, one of the pioneers in the study of cell division and its regulation.  He was also a most supportive teacher, mentor and colleague.  The new Molecular Biology Department at Berkeley was an exciting research environment, with 5 Nobel laureates on the staff.  Graves also met her husband, John, there, when she participated in a molecular interpretation of West Side Story, put on by the postgrad students for an inter-departmental Christmas party.  She has continued singing throughout her career, in lectures as well as after work.

The conditions of her Fulbright grant meant that Graves had to return to Australia after completing her degree.  She applied for a lectureship at La Trobe (before her PhD thesis was quite finished), and took up the position in 1971.  The new department at La Trobe, in a young university full of bright young faculty, provided an exciting and stimulating environment.  Graves initially thought of becoming a “proper” molecular biologist and work on bacteriophages, or at least on mammals.  But a colleague, Des Cooper, suggested she pick up from her Adelaide work, in which she showed that one X chromosome is inactivated in marsupials, as in other mammals.  This meant she would need to map which genes were on the X chromosome, for which her experience in cell fusion at Berkeley was very useful.  Graves soon realised that comparing gene regulation between marsupials and placental mammals provided a powerful tool for asking evolutionary questions.  The significance of this work was recognised when she became part of the comparative gene mapping committee of the International Workshops on Human Gene Mapping.

This extensive database mapping genes on the X and Y chromosomes also led to crucial work that contributed to the identification of the sex determining gene.  In his last week in Graves’ lab, Andrew Sinclair showed that a gene on the Y chromosome initially thought to be the male-determining factor was found on non-sex chromosomes in marsupials, so was not the sex-determining gene.  Sinclair then moved to Peter Goodfellow’s lab in the UK and with another Australian, Jamie Foster, identified the SRY gene as the testis-determining factor (TDF).  Apart from showing the evolution of sex, the gene maps allow identification of other sex-linked traits and disorders, for example, genes responsible for certain birth defects. 

At RSBS, the Comparative Genomics group will continue the gene mapping work investigating the organisation, function and evolution of mammalian sex chromosomes and sex determining genes as well as comparative genome mapping.  Graves also plans to expand some branches of research, such as X chromosome inactivation, isolating and mapping important control genes in placental mammals and marsupials, for which it was difficult to get support in the past.  In response to the call for scientists to pursue more applied research, her group will put some time into medical and other practical applications of this work.  Graves comments that some of the most exciting and significant discoveries from her research in marsupial genetics were completely unpredicted, reflecting the potential value of good basic research in less “fashionable” or obviously “applied” areas.

In her new position she also has the freedom to choose what courses to teach.  Former graduate students remember her as a superb teacher – supportive, full of enthusiasm and always with an open door.  Her graduate “children” are scattered all over the world, and she still collaborates with many of them.  She also enjoys undergraduate teaching, although it is a great drain of energy.  She laments the increasing teaching load placed on university scientists, especially with the seemingly endless reporting and accounting for one’s every activity that is now a universal feature of academic life.  The ability to choose research and teaching with minimal extraneous administration were strong factors determining her move to Canberra.

Graves also raised a family while establishing herself as an independent scientist.  To get through the early years was ‘just plain hard work’, especially looking after her first daughter with no maternity leave.  With her second daughter, Graves was able to use maternity leave to return to work part time when her baby was very young.  She comments that women will always do it tough managing two full-time jobs – career and family.  Her husband also has a science degree, but he now juggles careers managing their vineyard, in transportation planning and is very active in local politics.

The scientific life hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Graves.  She suffered a severe illness in 1992, which coincided with losing research grants and having to let lab members go as well, with no funds to support them.  But she kept the lab alive and the following year, all Graves’ grant proposals were funded.  An up and down existence that even the most successful and productive scientists have to contend with.

Graves does not seem to have felt any discrimination in her career, except being asked to be on many committees on how to encourage women in science – which she is not sure have been very effective. She seems more concerned that a non-feminist view can affect how science is done, particularly in her field that deals with what genes determine sex and sex-related characteristics.  Her “feminist” view of sex determination is outlined in recent invited lectures – to the Society for the Study of Reproduction published, according to the Editor, “as submitted”; and to the Royal Society of Victoria.  Indeed, in an interview with Professor Roger Short, Graves said she would like to be remembered for her ideas, which she is incorporating into a forthcoming book.

Sources: 

Short, Roger (2000) Australian Academy of Science video interview with Professor Jenny Graves.  Full transcript available at http://www.science.org.au/scientists/jg.htm

Graves, Jennifer A. Marshall (2000) Human Y chromosome, sex determination and spermatogenesis – a feminist view.  Biology of Reproduction 63: 667-676.

Graves, Jennifer A. Marshall (2001) Sex, genes and chromosomes – a feminist view.  Lecture to the Royal Society of Victoria, summary available at http://www.sciencevictoria.org.au/ord0601.htm