Alexandra Joyner Awarded 2026 Society for Developmental Biology Lifetime Achievement Award

8/6/2026

By Kate Windsor

Alexandra Joyner is the recipient of the 2026 Society for Developmental Biology Lifetime Achievement Award. She was surprised and honored to hear the news from SDB president Richard Behringer. Joyner helped to create the foundation of mouse genetics and in 1983 published one of the first textbooks on manipulating the mouse genome: Gene Targeting: A Practical Approach, which has been a go-to resource for mouse researchers for decades.

Joyner's science journey began as an undergrad at the University of Toronto, where she took a course on fly genetics. Joyner loved the genetics and developmental biology of the fly but wanted to work in a mammalian system. She made it her goal to study the same type of genetics in a mouse model but found a dearth of genetic tools at her disposal. So, she made the tools. Joyner began her doctoral research in the early 1980s at the Ontario Cancer Institute, where she developed a retrovirus to introduce and express a bacterial gene in mouse cells and became a pioneer of mammalian genetic engineering.

Joyner's time at the Ontario Cancer Institute coincided with a paradigmatic shift in cancer research: emerging work suggested that oncogenes might also contribute to normal development. So, Joyner sought out a postdoctoral position that would allow her to study development using molecular biology and traditional mouse genetics. She landed at the University of California, San Francisco, in the lab of Gail Martin, who coined the term 'embryonic stem cells' and who recently passed in February 2026.

In the Martin lab, Joyner developed methods for introducing DNA into embryonic stem cells and began to explore the idea that developmental genes may be conserved between fly and mouse. Other researchers had found that HOX genes, which regulate the embryonic body plan, were conserved, so Joyner decided to test the homology of a fly gene that did not have a standard homeobox domain. A neighboring researcher had just cloned the fly engrailed gene, which contributes to determining the anterior-posterior axis of a fly embryo.

RNA in situ expression of engrailed (En-2) in the developing mouse cerebellum. (a) Diagram of a midsagittal section of a 12.5-day mouse embryo. The lettered lines indicate the levels of the transverse sections in (b-d). (I) First ventricle; (III) third ventricle; (IV) fourth ventricle. (Adapted from Joyner et al., 1988.)

Figure 1: RNA in situ expression of engrailed (En-2) in the developing mouse cerebellum. (a) Diagram of a midsagittal section of a 12.5-day mouse embryo. The lettered lines indicate the levels of the transverse sections in (b-d). (I) First ventricle; (III) third ventricle; (IV) fourth ventricle. (Adapted from Joyner et al., 1988.)

That researcher, Thomas Kornberg, was able to provide Joyner with a DNA probe. Joyner successfully cloned two equivalent genes in mice (engrailed 1 and 2 or En1/2), and, with some of the first evidence of a gene that was important to mouse development, Joyner went off to start her own lab in 1986 at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute. Her research group discovered that not only were the engrailed genes conserved, but one of their target genes in fly (cubitus interruptus, or CI) was also conserved in mouse (glioma-associated oncogene, or the Gli genes).

Further study of engrailed led Joyner into the field of neuroscience.

"I wasn't a neuroscientist; I wasn't trained as a neuroscientist. The hot field at that time was patterning and segmentation ... so that's what I was looking for. But then we cloned these engrailed genes and did RNA in situs, and it was clear there was a band [or expression] in the brain," Joyner said (see Figure 1).

Deletion of En2 in mice altered the adult cerebellar foliation pattern - in other words, the cerebellum had patterning defects. This discovery set Joyner down the path to investigate how the cerebellum gets its folds and how particular folds regulate behavior. She took this work to New York in 1994 when she was invited to create the Developmental Genetics Program at the Skirball Institute, and she served as the founding coordinator there for 10 years before moving to the Sloan Kettering Institute to spend the next 20 years in the Developmental Biology Program and as Courtney Steel Chair in Pediatric Cancer Research.

Alex Joyner with Jazz, her Border Terrier. Central Park, New York City.

Figure 2: Alex Joyner with Jazz, her Border Terrier. Central Park, New York City. 

In the last 10 years of Joyner's career, her lab discovered that particular cell types in the mouse cerebellum could be regenerated. In fly, the engrailed genes enhance the expression of Sonic hedgehog (Shh). Alex Wojcinski, a postdoc in Joyner’s lab at the time, intended to test the hypothesis that the same transcriptional relationship extended to mouse. Instead, he discovered the extensive ability of the mouse cerebellum to regenerate.

"We ended up in this completely new area that I had never imagined we'd be working in, and it turned out to be a really fascinating last 10 years of my career," Joyner said.

As Joyner finishes up publishing the last papers out of her lab, she is finding new ways to spend her new free time. In addition to serving as an editor for Science Advances, Joyner is raising a Border Terrier (Figure 2) and getting involved with her community in Ontario by volunteering with a climate group that advocates for planting native species to support the natural pollinators of the area. Joyner, who prioritized mentorship throughout her career, has found in retirement that she still loves to interact with young people. She helps out at the local elementary school by making breakfast for any students who want it.

"I like to see young people be supported and do well in their careers and what they're interested in doing," Joyner said.

Joyner presented her Lifetime Achievement Award lecture in Las Vegas in July 2026, at the Society for Developmental Biology’s 85th Annual Meeting.

 

References

Joyner, A.L. (Ed.). (1983). Gene Targeting: A Practical Approach. Oxford University Press.

Joyner, A., Keller, G., Phillips, R., Bernstein, A. (1983). Retrovirus transfer of a bacterial gene into mouse haematopoietic progenitor cells. Nature 305, 556–558. https://doi.org/10.1038/305556a0

Davis, C. A., Noble-Topham, S. E., Rossant, J., & Joyner, A. L. (1988). Expression of the homeo box-containing gene En-2 delineates a specific region of the developing mouse brain. Genes Dev., 2(3), 361-371. doi: 10.1101/gad.2.3.361

Last Updated 08/06/2026