Sharon Rugel Long was born on to Harold Eugene and Florence Jean Long. She attended George Washington High School in Denver, Colorado. Long spent a year at Harvey Mudd College before becoming one of the first women to attend Caltech in September 1970. She completed a double major in biochemistry and French literature in the Independent Studies Program, and obtained her B.S. in 1973. Long went on to study biochemistry and genetics at Yale, receiving her Ph.D. in 1979. She began her research on plants and symbiosis while a postdoc at Frederick M Ausubels lab at Harvard University.
Personal
Long married her college boyfriend Harold James McGee on July 7, 1979 and divorced in 2004. They had two children.
Career
Long joined the Stanford University faculty in 1982 as an assistant professor, rising to associate professor in 1987, and full professor in 1992. From 1994-2001 she was also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She currently holds the Steere-Pfizer chair in Biological Sciences at Stanford. From 1993-1996 she was part of the National Research Councils Committee on Undergraduate Science Education. She served as Dean of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University from 2001 to 2007. In September 2008 she was identified as one of 5 science advisors for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. In 2011, she was appointed to the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science by President Obama.
Research
Long identified and cloned genes that allow bacteria to find and enter certain plants in which they live symbiotically. She has examined the interactions of Rhizobium bacteria with legumes such as alfalfa, soybeans and peas, in which they enhance nitrogen production. She has genetically modified bacteria to make them more effective at entering host plants and producing nitrogen. Such initiatives may enable farmers to reduce nitrogen fertilizer use and runoff of fertilizer into local water supplies. Her current research uses molecular, genetic, and biochemical techniques to study the early stages of symbiosis between Sinorhizobium meliloti and its host plants in the genus Medicago. Rhizobium cells recognize and form nodules on their plant hosts. Her group discovered that a flavone derived from alfalfa seed extracts is necessary for activation of nodulation genes in Sinorhizobium meliloti. They proved that some nod genes encode enzymes that synthesize Nod Factor. They discovered that plant root hair cells show rapid ionic changes including calcium spiking in response to specific Nod Factors. With colleagues, they have identified plant genes for symbiosis, and correlated these with specific stages in nodule development.
