David Baulcombe

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Sir David Baulcombe
David Charles Baulcombe.jpg
Born David Charles Baulcombe
(1952-04-07) April 7, 1952 (age 72)[1]
Solihull, West Midlands
Residence Norwich, Norfolk
Nationality British
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Institutions <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Alma mater <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Thesis The Processing and Intracellular Transport of Messenger RNA in a Higher Plant (1976)
Doctoral students Olivier Voinnet
Robert A. Martienssen
Known for <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Notable awards <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Spouse Rose Eden (m. 1976)[1]
Children 1 son, 3 daughters[1]
Website
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Sir David Charles Baulcombe, FRS[3] FMedSci (born 1952)[1] is a British plant scientist and geneticist. He is currently Royal Society Research Professor and Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge.[4][5][6][7]

Education

David Baulcombe was born in Solihull, West Midlands (then Warwickshire). He received his Bachelor of Science degree in botany from the University of Leeds in 1973 at the age of 21. He proceeded to the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Doctor of Philosophy in botany in 1977.[8]

Biography

After his PhD, Baulcombe then spent the following three years as a post-doctoral fellow in North America, first at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) from January 1977 to November 1978, and then at the University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia, USA) until December 1980. Baulcombe returned to the United Kingdom then, where he joined the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI) in Cambridge and started his career as an independent scientist. At the PBI, Baulcombe initially held the position of Higher Scientific Officer, and was promoted to Principal Scientific Officer in April 1986.[9] In August 1988 Baulcombe left Cambridge for Norwich. He joined the Sainsbury Laboratory as a Senior Research Scientist,[10] and also served as Head of Laboratory between 1990 and 1993 and 1999–2003. In 1998 he was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia, and given a full professorship there in 2002.[9] In March 2007 it was announced that Baulcombe would become the next Professor of Botany at Cambridge University as a Royal Society Research Professor, taking up his post in September 2007.[11] He serves on several committees and study sections,[12] was elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 1997 and was president of the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology 2003–2004. As of 2007, he is also a senior advisor for The EMBO Journal.[13]

In June 2009, Baulcombe was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II.[14] Baulcombe resides in Norwich. He is married and has four children. His interests include music, sailing and hill walking.[9]

Contributions to science

Baulcombe's research interests and contributions to science are mainly in the fields of virus movement, genetic regulation, disease resistance, and gene silencing.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]

With Andrew Hamilton he discovered the small interfering RNA that is the specificity determinant in RNA-mediated gene silencing.[26] Baulcombe's group demonstrated that while viruses can induce gene silencing, some viruses encode proteins that suppress gene silencing.[12] After these initial observations in plants, many laboratories around the world searched for the occurrence of this phenomenon in other organisms. In 1998 Craig Mello and Andrew Fire reported a potent gene silencing effect after injecting double stranded RNA into Caenorhabditis elegans.[27] This discovery was particularly notable because it represented the first identification of the causative agent for the phenomenon. Fire and Mello were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine[28] in 2006 for their work. [29]

With other members of his research group at the Sainsbury Laboratory, Baulcombe also helped unravel the importance of small interfering RNA in epigenetics and in defence against viruses.

Honours and awards

Sir David Baulcombe has received the following honours and awards:

Baulcombe's nomination for the Royal Society reads<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

David Baulcombe has made an outstanding contribution to the inter-related areas of plant virology, gene silencing and disease resistance. He discovered a specific signalling system and an antiviral defence system in plants. This led to the development of new technologies that promise to revolutionize gene discovery in plant biology.[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.(subscription required)
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 http://www.webcitation.org/6Mgx1yeZx
  4. ↑ David Baulcombe's publications indexed by Google Scholar, a service provided by Google
  5. ↑ List of publications from Microsoft Academic Search
  6. ↑ David Baulcombe on TwitterLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
  7. ↑ David Baulcombe's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database, a service provided by Elsevier.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.[self-published source?]
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Cambridge University Department of Plant Sciences news
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 American Phytopathological Society
  13. ↑ Embo editorial board
  14. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 59090. p. 1. 13 June 2009.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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