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John Sulston

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Sir John Sulston
Born (1942-03-27) 27 March 1942 (age 82)[1]
NationalityBritain
Alma materPembroke College, Cambridge
Known forNobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002
Work on Caenorhabditis elegans[2][3][4][5]
Sulston score[6]
Director of Sanger Centre
SpouseDaphne Edith Bate[1]
AwardsNobel prize in Physiology or Medicine (2002)
Knight Bachelor (2001)
Fellow of the Royal Society (1986)
Scientific career
FieldsBiology
Apoptosis
Genetics
InstitutionsWellcome Trust Sanger Institute
University of Cambridge
Salk Institute
Laboratory of Molecular Biology
University of Manchester
ThesisAspects of oligoribonucleotide synthesis (1967)
Websitewww.manchester.ac.uk/research/john.sulston
www.sanger.ac.uk/about/people/biographies/jsulston.html
The Sulston Laboratories of the Wellcome Trust 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. As of 2012 he is Chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation[7] at the University of Manchester.[8][9][10][11][12]


Education

Sulston was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood[1] and Pembroke College, Cambridge graduating in 1963 with an undergraduate degree in Organic Chemistry. He joined the department of chemistry in Cambridge, gained his Doctor of Philosophy[13] for research in nucleotide chemistry, and devoted his scientific life to biological research, especially in the field of molecular biology.

Career

After working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies for a while, he returned to Cambridge to work with Sydney Brenner at the Medical Research Council| Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Sulston played a central role in both the Caenorhabditis elegans worm [3] and human genome[14] 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 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.

Sulston is a distinguished supporter of the British Humanist Association.[15] In 2003 he was one of 21 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[16]

In 2001 Sulston was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on The Secrets of Life.

He also provided bail sureties for Julian Assange, according to Mark Stephens, Julian's solicitor. [17]. Having backed Julian Assange by pledging bail in December 2010, he lost the money in June 2012 when a judge ordered it to be forfeited, as Assange had sought to escape the jurisdiction of the English courts by entering the embassy of Ecuador.[18]

Sulston was one of 20 Nobel Laureates who signed the "Stockholm Memorandum" at the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability in Stockholm, Sweden on 18 May 2011.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c "SULSTON, Sir John (Edward)". Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012.(subscription required)
  2. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1038/368032a0 , please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1038/368032a0 instead.
  3. ^ a b Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 4858229, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=4858229 instead.
  4. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/0012-1606(83)90201-4, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/0012-1606(83)90201-4 instead.
  5. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/0012-1606(77)90158-0, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/0012-1606(77)90158-0 instead.
  6. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 2838135, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=2838135 instead.
  7. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 15510171, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=15510171 instead.
  8. ^ http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/people/profile/?alias=sulstonj
  9. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 17196043, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=17196043 instead.
  10. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 14580111, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=14580111 instead.
  11. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 11370623, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=11370623 instead.
  12. ^ John Sulston publications indexed by Microsoft Academic
  13. ^ Sulston, John (1967). Aspects of oligoribonucleotide synthesis (PhD thesis). University of Cambrige.(subscription required)
  14. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite pmid}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by PMID 11237011, please use {{cite journal}} with |pmid=11237011 instead.
  15. ^ "Distinguished Supporters". British Humanist Association. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  16. ^ "Notable Signers". Humanism and Its Aspirations. American Humanist Association. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  17. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12015140
  18. ^ Daily Mail 4 September 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198072/Julian-Assanges-high-profile-backers-set-lose-340-000-bail-money-remains-holed-Ecuador-Embassy.html
  19. ^ "Stockholm Memorandum," Nobel-cause.de, 2011

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