Enrico Coen

Enrico Sandro Coen CBE FRS (born 29 September 1957) is a biologist who studies the mechanisms used by plants to create complex and varied flower structures. Enrico combines molecular, genetic and imaging studies with population and ecological models and computational analysis to understand flower development.

Coen earned a PhD from King's College, Cambridge in 1982, for research on Drosophila supervised by Gabriel Dover.

By studying model systems from the genus Antirrhinum, commonly known as the snapdragon, Enrico has created computer simulations of how plant cells and their genes interact to direct flower formation and control colour. Enrico's research aims to define the developmental rules that govern flower and leaf growth at both the cellular level and throughout the whole plant, linking these different scales of analysis into an integrated understanding of evolution.

Enrico has written several books, including the recent Cells to Civilizations: The Principles of Change That Shape Life, in which he postulates the seven ‘ingredients’ that shape life: population variation, persistence, reinforcement, competition, co-operation, combinatorial richness and recurrence. He has collaborated with Przemysław Prusinkiewicz.

Awards and honours

Coen won the 2004 Darwin Medal, with Rosemary Carpenter and is a member of Faculty of 1000. In 2012 he became President of the Genetics Society,, finishing his 3-year term in 2015. Coen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1998. He was appointed a CBE in 2003 for services to plant genetics.