Blanche Capel, PhD, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology, has been named the 2025 recipient of the Edwin G. Conklin Medal in Developmental Biology.
Established in 1995, the Conklin Medal is awarded annually by the Society for Developmental Biology (SDB) to recognize a developmental biologist who has made and is continuing to make extraordinary research contributions to the field, and is an excellent mentor who has helped train the next generation of outstanding scientists.
A leader in the field of vertebrate sex determination, Capel pioneered the bipotential gonad as a model for studying cell fate commitment and organogenesis. She discovered that in mammals, development of a testis or ovary from the bipotential gonad is initiated by a gene on the Y-chromosome, SRY. However, in the red-eared slider turtle, it is initiated by the incubation temperature of the eggs. Her lab showed that, in both mammals and reptiles, a single epigenetic regulator activates the most upstream gene.
Capel said she is deeply honored by this award from the members of the Society for Developmental Biology.