John Sulston

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Sir John Sulston
Born 27 March 1942 (1942-03-27) (age 69)
Nationality Britain
Fields Biology
Institutions Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, University of Manchester
Alma mater Cambridge
Known for Caenorhabditis elegans[1], Apoptosis,
Notable awards Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002
EBI and Sulston Laboratories of the Sanger Institute.

Sir John Edward Sulston FRS (born 27 March 1942) is a British biologist. He is a joint winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

He is currently Chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation (iSEI) at the University of Manchester.[2]

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[edit] Biography

Sulston was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood and Pembroke College, Cambridge graduating in 1963. He joined the Chemistry Department in Cambridge, gained his PhD degree for research in nucleotide chemistry and devoted his scientific life to biological research, especially in the field of molecular biology. After working as a Postdoctoral researcher at the Salk Institute, USA for a while, he returned to Cambridge to work under Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Sulston played a central role in both the Caenorhabditis elegans worm [1] and human genome[3] sequencing projects. He had argued successfully for the sequencing of C. elegans to show that large-scale genome sequencing projects were feasible. As sequencing of the worm genome proceeded, the project to sequence the human genome began. At this point he was made director of the newly established Sanger Centre (named after Fred Sanger and now the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute), located in Cambridgeshire, England.

Following completion of the 'working draft' of the human genome sequence in 2000, Sulston retired from his role as director at the Sanger Centre. In 2002 he won the Dan David Prize, directed by Professor Gad Barzilai, and the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award. Later, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sydney Brenner and H. Robert Horvitz, both of whom he had collaborated with at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), for their discoveries concerning 'genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death'. One of Sulston's most important contributions during his research years at the LMB was to elucidate the precise order in which cells in C. elegans divide. In fact, he and his team succeeded in tracing the nematode's entire embryonic cell lineage. Sulston is now a leading campaigner against the patenting of human genetic information.

He is a distinguished supporter of the British Humanist Association[1].

He also provided bail sureties for Julian Assange, according to Mark Stephens, Julian's solicitor. [2].

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Sulston, J.; Brenner, S. (1974). "The DNA of Caenorhabditis elegans". Genetics 77 (1): 95–104. PMC 1213121. PMID 4858229. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1213121.  edit
  2. ^ http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/people/profile/index.aspx?id=4298
  3. ^ Lander, Eric S.; Linton, M. .; Birren, B. .; Nusbaum, C. .; Zody, C. .; Baldwin, J. .; Devon, K. .; Dewar, K. . et al (Feb 2001). "Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome". Nature 409 (6822): 860–921. doi:10.1038/35057062. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 11237011.  edit

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