Medicine

Sir John Sulston, scientist who led DNA discovery, dies

March 10, 2018 23:38·
Professor Sir John Sulston in his laboratory at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge in 2002 after it was announced he had won a share of the Nobel Prize in medicine

Professor Sir John Sulston in his laboratory at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge in 2002 after it was announced he had won a share of the Nobel Prize in medicine

Nobel Prize victor Sir John Sulston, a man credited with pioneering human genome research, has passed away at the age of 75.

He graduated from Cambridge University in 1963, and did postdoctoral research in California before joining Sydney Brenner's group at the Cambridge University molecular biology lab, where the structure of DNA first was identified.

The scientist led the United Kingdom side of the landmark Human Genome Project and founded and directed the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, which has become one the country's leading biomedical institutions.

Early on in his career, Sulston studied the division of cells in adult nematode worms in order to understand how cells divide and die to create new organisms.

Sulston helped found the Institute which has risen to become one of Britain's leading biomedical institutions.

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The Institute now runs the largest genomics programme in Europe, and the laboratories there bear his name.

Kings College London Professor Tim Spector described Sir John Sulston to The Independent as the "humble unsung hero of the Human Genome Project".

From 1992 to 2000, Sulston founded and directed the Sanger Institute, formerly known as the Sanger Centre, which conducts research on diagnostics and treatment for genetic diseases.

"We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Professor Sir John Sulston, founding director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute", the institute said in a statement.

Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, added: "John was a brilliant scientist and a wonderful, kind and principled man. His leadership was critical to the establishment of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Human Genome Project, one of the most important scientific endeavours of the past century". "It's just one of the ways that John's approach set the standard for researchers everywhere". He was serving as the professor and chairman of the Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester at the time of his death, the institute said.

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