David Baulcombe Explained

Sir David Baulcombe
Birth Name:David Charles Baulcombe
Birth Date:1952 4, df=yes
Birth Place:Solihull, West Midlands
Nationality:British
Doctoral Advisor:John Ingle
Thesis Title:The Processing and Intracellular Transport of Messenger RNA in a Higher Plant
Thesis Url:http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.641386
Thesis Year:1976
Children:1 son, 3 daughters
Spouse:Rose Eden (m. 1976)

Sir David Charles Baulcombe [1] [2] (born 1952) is a British plant scientist and geneticist. he is a Royal Society Research Professor. From 2007 to 2020 he was Regius Professor of Botany in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.[3] [4]

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 continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1977 for research on Messenger RNA in vascular plants supervised by John Ingle.[5]

Career and research

After his PhD, Baulcombe spent the following three years as a postdoctoral fellow in North America, first at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) from January 1977 to November 1978, and then at the University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia, United States) 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.[6] In August 1988 Baulcombe left Cambridge for Norwich. He joined the Sainsbury Laboratory as a senior research scientist,[7] and also served as head of laboratory between 1990 and 1993 and between 1999 and 2003. In 1998 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of East Anglia, and given a full professorship there in 2002.[6] 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.[8] In 2009, the position was renamed "Regius Professor of Botany". In 2020 he was succeeded by Ottoline Leyser.

He serves on several committees and study sections,[9] was elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 1997 and was president of the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology 2003–2004., he is also a senior advisor for The EMBO Journal.[10] He also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2015.

Baulcombe's research interests and contributions to science are mainly in the fields of virus movement, genetic regulation, disease resistance, and gene silencing.[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]

With Andrew Hamilton he discovered the small interfering RNA that is the specificity determinant in RNA-mediated gene silencing.[22] Baulcombe's group demonstrated that while viruses can induce gene silencing, some viruses encode proteins that suppress gene silencing.[9] 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.[23] 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[24] in 2006 for their work.[25]

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

In June 2009, Baulcombe was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II. Baulcombe resides in Norwich. Baulcombe has also received the following honours and awards:

Baulcombe's nomination for the Royal Society reads

Personal life

Baulcombe is married and has four children. His interests include music, sailing and hill walking.[6]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: royalsociety.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20151123152927/https://royalsociety.org/people/david-baulcombe-11055/. 23 November 2015. Professor Sir David Baulcombe FMedSci FRS. London. Anon. 2001. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
  2. Web site: https://www.webcitation.org/6Mgx1yeZx?url=http://royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=%28RefNo%3D%3D%27EC%2F2001%2F03%27%29. Royal Society. David Baulcombe election certificate EC/2001/03. 17 January 2014. dead. dmy-all.
  3. Web site: Interview with Professor Baulcombe from in-cites website. https://web.archive.org/web/20070625175911/http://in-cites.com/papers/DavidBaulcombe.html. dead. 2007-06-25. in-cites.com.
  4. Web site: Biography from the American Phytopathological Society 2002 Awards (p.4). apsnet.org. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110622001942/http://www.apsnet.org/members/awards/PastAwardees/Documents/2002awardees.pdf. 22 June 2011. dmy-all.
  5. PhD . David. Baulcombe . The Processing and Intracellular Transport of Messenger RNA in a Higher Plant (1976) . University of Edinburgh . 1976 . . 1842/14914.
  6. Web site: David Baulcombe cv . 15 September 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100103082940/http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/baulcombe/cv.html . 3 January 2010 . dmy-all .
  7. Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. David Baulcombe . . 17 . 3 . R73–R74 . 2007 . 17328111. 10.1016/j.cub.2007.01.022. 20568141 . free .
  8. http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/news/content.html Cambridge University Department of Plant Sciences news
  9. http://www.apsnet.org/members/awards/pdf/2002awardees.pdf American Phytopathological Society
  10. Web site: Embo editorial board. nature.com/emboj. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20090125002133/http://www.nature.com/emboj/about/editor.html. 25 January 2009. dmy-all.
  11. Hamilton . A. . Voinnet . O. . Chappell . L. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. Two classes of short interfering RNA in RNA silencing . The EMBO Journal . 21 . 17 . 4671–4679 . 2002 . 12198169 . 125409 . 10.1093/emboj/cdf464.
  12. Papaefthimiou . I. . Hamilton . A. . Denti . M. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. Tsagris . M. . Tabler . M. . Replicating potato spindle tuber viroid RNA is accompanied by short RNA fragments that are characteristic of post-transcriptional gene silencing . Nucleic Acids Research . 29 . 11 . 2395–2400 . 2001 . 11376158 . 55696 . 10.1093/nar/29.11.2395.
  13. 10.1016/S0092-8674(00)80864-8 . Dalmay . T. . Hamilton . A. . Rudd . S. . Angell . S. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. An RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene in Arabidopsis is required for posttranscriptional gene silencing mediated by a transgene but not by a virus . Cell . 101 . 5 . 543–553 . 2000 . 10850496. 2103803 . free .
  14. Burton . R. . Gibeaut . D. . Bacic . A. . Findlay . K. . Roberts . K. . Hamilton . A. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. Fincher . G. . Virus-induced silencing of a plant cellulose synthase gene . The Plant Cell . 12 . 5 . 691–706 . 2000 . 10810144 . 139921 . 10.1105/tpc.12.5.691.
  15. Dalmay . T. . Hamilton . A. . Mueller . E. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. Potato virus X amplicons in arabidopsis mediate genetic and epigenetic gene silencing . The Plant Cell . 12 . 3 . 369–379 . 2000 . 10715323 . 139837 . 10.1105/tpc.12.3.369.
  16. Jones . L. . Hamilton . A. . Voinnet . O. . Thomas . C. . Maule . A. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. RNA-DNA interactions and DNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene silencing . The Plant Cell . 11 . 12 . 2291–2301 . 1999 . 10590159 . 144133 . 10.1105/tpc.11.12.2291.
  17. Hamilton . W. . Boccara . M. . Robinson . D. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. The complete nucleotide sequence of tobacco rattle virus RNA-1 . The Journal of General Virology . 68 . 2563–2575 . 1987 . 3668507 . 10 . 10.1099/0022-1317-68-10-2563. free .
  18. Boccara . M. . Hamilton . W. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. The organisation and interviral homologies of genes at the 3' end of tobacco rattle virus RNA1 . The EMBO Journal . 5 . 2 . 223–229 . 1986 . 16453668 . 1166722. 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1986.tb04202.x .
  19. Lu . J. . Zhang . C. . Baulcombe . D. C. . David Baulcombe. Chen . Z. J. . Maternal siRNAs as regulators of parental genome imbalance and gene expression in endosperm of Arabidopsis seeds . 10.1073/pnas.1203094109 . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 109 . 14 . 5529–5534 . 2012 . 22431617 . 3325730 . 2012PNAS..109.5529L . free .
  20. 10.1038/321446a0. Expression of biologically active viral satellite RNA from the nuclear genome of transformed plants. Nature. 321. 6068. 446. 1986. Baulcombe . D. C. . David Baulcombe. Saunders . G. R. . Bevan . M. W. . Michael W. Bevan. Mayo . M. A. . Harrison . B. D. . 1986Natur.321..446B. 4309327.
  21. 10.1242/dev.01206. 15226253. Modulation of floral development by a gibberellin-regulated microRNA. Development. 131. 14. 3357–65. 2004. Achard . P.. Herr. A. Baulcombe. D. C.. David Baulcombe. Harberd. N. P.. Nicholas Harberd. 15553199.
  22. Hamilton . A. J. . Baulcombe . D. . David Baulcombe. A Species of Small Antisense RNA in Posttranscriptional Gene Silencing in Plants . 10.1126/science.286.5441.950 . Science . 286 . 5441 . 950–952 . 1999 . 10542148.
  23. Fire . A. . Andrew Fire. Xu . S. . Montgomery . M. K. . Kostas . S. A. . Driver . S. E. . Mello . C. C. . Craig Mello. Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans . Nature . 391 . 6669 . 806–811 . 1998 . 10.1038/35888 . 9486653. 1998Natur.391..806F . 4355692 .
  24. Web site: No Nobel for You: Top 10 Nobel Snubs: Scientific American Slideshows . 11 September 2012. scientificamerican.
  25. Web site: Advanced Information: RNA interference . Daneholt . Bertil . The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2006 . 25 January 2007.
  26. Web site: EMBO member: David Baulcombe. people.embo.org. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20170806144731/http://people.embo.org/profile/david-baulcombe. 6 August 2017. dmy-all.
  27. Web site: Franklin Medallist David Baulcombe. fi.edu. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20080515075228/http://www.fi.edu/franklinawards/08/laureate_bf_lifescience-ambros-baulcombe-ruvkin.html. 15 May 2008. dmy-all.
  28. Web site: Epigenetics researcher a 2012 Balzan prizewinner | Laboratory Product News . 11 September 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120915152401/http://www.labcanada.com/news/epigenetics-researcher-a-2012-balzan-prizewinner/1001682753/ . 15 September 2012 . dmy-all .
  29. Web site: 2014 Gruber Genetics Prize Press Release The Gruber Foundation. gruber.yale.edu. en. 2018-02-01.
  30. Web site: List of all Honorary Graduates and Chancellor's Medallists . 2024-05-03 . warwick.ac.uk.

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