Michael O’Connor, emeritus professor of genetics, cell biology, and development at the University of Minnesota and recipient of the 2026 Edward Nowitzki Prize, can still be seen conducting experiments at the bench—something he’s done throughout his career. “I like to talk and I’m a bench scientist,” he says. “When you’re out in the lab, you can drive the whole discussion and not only is it more fun, but it also helps students and postdocs interact with me in a more familiar way.”
Heidi Bretscher, a former postdoctoral researcher in O’Connor’s lab, recalls, “I’m pretty sure Mike never missed a day in the flyroom. He has an absolutely incredible passion for science. He just lives and breathes it and loves it.” Since starting her own lab as an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Michigan, Bertscher says she’s been “committed to being like Mike,” spending time in the lab every day.
O’Connor began his postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School in the early days of cloning genes. “[Biologists] “They were just beginning to realize that many eukaryotic genes were larger than in prokaryotes, so large pieces of DNA needed to be cloned and manipulated,” says O’Connor, who was studying a set of genes that control body division. Drosophilahe then produced the first bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) for his study. BACs soon became widely used in the 1990s.
In 1988, O’Connor started a lab at the University of California, Irvine where he began studying the role of TGFꞵ signaling in regulating growth, body size and metabolic function. Drosophila. An important study looked at how dorsal cells Drosophila Embryos differentiate into distinct tissues. There, he identified mutants in the TGFꞵ signaling pathway and used biochemical and computational assays to further understand their function in determining cell fate. He worked with Hans Othmer’s group at the University of Minnesota to develop a mathematical model that would show how a pair of proteins within the TGF superfamily spreads and forms a gradient to pattern the dorsal-ventral axis in the embryo. Drosophila. “His lab has made huge contributions to body and size measurements in terms of TGFꞵ signaling,” says Bretscher.
O’Connor’s philosophy in research is to go where the science leads, even if it’s a completely different field of work. It’s a perspective he instills in his trainees, allowing them to explore different directions. “He’s just as helpful as anyone in his lab wants to be,” says Bretscher. “It’s satisfying to be able to take something you know nothing about, learn about it, and then be able to do something new in the field,” explains O’Connor.
In this spirit, he began working on the arthropod molting hormone ecdysone in the early 2000s when he came across a mutant with an “extraordinary phenotype” while searching for the TGFꞵ receptor. “The thing that stood out to me about this story is that I didn’t know anything about ecdysone,” says O’Connor. He then devoted the next decades to understanding the enzymes involved in converting cholesterol to ecdysone and understanding how the neuroendocrine system regulates ecdysone pulse generation.
“I was really impressed by the fact that he could lead two research programs at the highest level in two very different fields,” says Pierre Leopold, group leader of genetics and physiology of growth at the Institut Curie. Leopold and O’Connor began collaborating when they realized they were both researching neurons that produce prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH), a hormone that regulates ecdysone synthesis. This collaboration led to the discovery that these neurons control both developmental changes and responses to light cues to enable larvae to pupate in the dark away from predators. Later, they looked at how null mutations PTH I influenced the development of genes Drosophila. Leopold, who describes his collaboration with O’Connor as “probably the most enjoyable part of my career,” says O’Connor is “one of the best scientists in biology.”
Since retiring, O’Connor spends a lot of time at the lab bench and then finds time to visit family or compete in ski racing events. “My philosophy has always been to play hard, play hard,” he says.
Look back over 40 years Drosophila research, O’Connor has looked at how advances in technology such as sequencing and microscopy have changed the way biologists do science. But most of all, he notes the contributions of his entire lab. “It’s all the people who have done the work that are really responsible for the award,” says O’Connor. “None of this would have happened without the people who are in the lab.”
Please join us in congratulating Michael O’Connor on receiving the Edward Nowitzki Prize in recognition of his creativity and intellectual brilliance in solving problems in genetics research.
