John Doebley studies the genetics of changes in plant form, especially the domestication of maize from teosinte. His own research profile describes quantitative genetics as a principal approach.[ref]
In 1997, Doebley and colleagues identified teosinte branched1 as a regulator associated with the stronger apical dominance of maize. Higher expression in maize connected altered gene regulation to reduced lateral branching. This work made a major crop difference experimentally approachable as a change in a developmental programme rather than an inexplicable difference between two plant forms.[ref]
The evolution of apical dominance in maize by John Doebley and others. Abstract, Nature 386, pp. 485–488
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