Veronica (Veronika) Daniel was born in 1946 in Békéscsaba, Hungary. Her parents were survivors of The Holocaust who had been interned in Nazi concentration camps. The majority of their families were murdered in Auschwitz. Her father was a textile engineer who had studied in Germany before World War II, enabling him to work after the war at a textile research institute in Budapest.[8]
Sponsored by an uncle in Britain, the family was able to get an immigrant passport, arriving in Worthing, Sussex, on January 30, 1958. They soon moved to Loughborough, where her father had found a position as a technical director. Veronica van Heyningen has commented that these experiences made her and her sister "very aware that education is life's major portable asset".[8] In 1963, as soon as it was legally possible to do so, her family applied for British citizenship.[8]
She lived at 20 Valley Road in Loughborough. She started at Humphrey Perkins Grammar School from the age of 12, gaining 11 O-levels. She took Physics, Chemistry and Biology A-level, taking part in swimming, and was in the school debating society.[19]
Education
Veronica studied the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge, and was an undergraduate at Girton College, Cambridge where she specialised in genetics from 1965 to 1968.[8][6] In June 1968 she married Simon van Heyningen, whom she had met when she was a student at Girton and he was a PhD student at King's College. Her subsequent career choices were shaped by the two-body problem.[8]
Van Heyningen was awarded a Beit Memorial Fellowship, which enabled her to take up a fellowship in Edinburgh with Peter Walker at the MRC Mammalian Genome Unit (MGU). In June 1977, after the fellowship ended, she joined the MRC Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit (CAPCU). She gained tenure there in February 1981. In 1992, Van Heyningen received funding as part of the International Research Scholar program of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). She became the leader of what later became known as the Medical and Developmental Genetics Section. Van Heyningen worked at CAPCU (later named the MRC Human Genetics Unit or MRC HGU) for 35 years, retiring in 2012.[8]
After her retirement in 2012, Van Heyningen moved to London. She is an honorary (non-teaching) professor at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, associated with University College London and the Moorfields Eye Hospital. She continues to collaborate with researchers such as ophthalmologist Andrew Webster.[8] In 2013 her work led to becoming patron of the charity Aniridia Network for people affected by aniridia in the UK.[22]
Research
Van Heyningen is a geneticist who studies eye development and disease. Among her research highlights is the discovery of the PAX6 gene, which is mutated in the eye disorder aniridia — the absence of the iris. PAX6 also coordinates the expression of other eye development genes, including the SOX2 and Orthodenticle homeobox 2 (OTX2) genes which are mutated in microphthalmia and anophthalmia. In the context of PAX6, she has explored in detail mechanisms of long-range gene regulation and aspects of phenotype variation.[21][8]
Awards and honours
Van Heyningen has received many awards in recognition of her work, including being appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to science in the 2010 Birthday Honours.[23] She was awarded the Carter Medal of the Clinical Genetics Society in 2011.[21] Other awards include:
