John E. Sulston
| Sir John E. Sulston | |
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| Born | March 27, 1942 |
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| Nationality | Britain |
| Fields | Biology |
| Known for | Caenorhabditis elegans, Apoptosis |
| Notable awards | Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002 |
Sir John Edward Sulston, FRS (born March 27, 1942) is a British biologist and the 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate.
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Sulston was educated at 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 and human genome 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 shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sydney Brenner and H. Robert Horvitz, both of whom he had collaborated with at the Cambridge Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB). 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.
In 2001, Sulston suggested that scientists should honour a Hippocratic Oath for Scientists.
In 2007 it was announced that Sulston will join The University of Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences and will chair the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation, a new research institute focusing on the ethical questions raised by science and technology in the 21st century.
- PLoS Biology: All for All
- John Sulston biography from the Wellcome Trust
- John Sulston: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002
- Portraits of John Sulston from the National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom)
- John Sulston profile from Channel4
- John Sulston profile from BBC4
- Freeview Video of Fredrick Sanger in conversation with John Sulston by the Vega Science Trust
- John Sulston profile from the Medical Research Council lab for Molecular Biology
- John Sulston FRS interview from the Royal Society
- Sir John Sulston FRS - Worm genomics
- Sir John Sulston awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize (press release from the Sanger Centre)
- The public servant: John Sulston
- British Scientists share 2002 Nobel Prize
- John Sulston: One man and his worm from The Guardian
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