Paul M. Sharp Explained

Paul Sharp
Birth Name:Paul Martin Sharp
Birth Date:1957 9, df=yes
Thesis Title:Quantitative genetics of Drosophila melanogaster - variation in male mating ability
Thesis Url:http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.330579
Thesis Year:1982
Notable Students:Desmond G. Higgins (postdoc)[1]
Doctoral Students:Kenneth H. Wolfe[2]
Alma Mater:University of Edinburgh (BSc, PhD)
Awards:EMBO Member (1992)[3]
Doctoral Advisor:Alan Robertson

Paul Martin Sharp (born 1957) [4] is Professor of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, where he holds the Alan Robertson chair of genetics in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology.[5] [6] [7]

Education

Sharp was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1979[8] followed by a PhD in 1982 for research using quantitative genetics on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster supervised by Alan Robertson.[5] [9]

Career and research

Sharp has held academic posts at Trinity College, Dublin from 1982 to 1993, the University of Nottingham from 1993 to 2007 and was appointed Professor at the University of Edinburgh in 2007.

Sharp's research investigates the evolutionary origin of bacteria and viruses.[10] He has carried out important work into the origin of HIV and its transmission from chimpanzees to humans. He also discovered that the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium, originated in gorillas. He was one of the first researchers to use DNA sequence databases to gain insight into evolutionary processes. His work amplifying DNA from chimpanzee faecal samples showed that HIV type 1 was transmitted to humans from a specific chimp population in West Africa in the early 20th century. Paul went on to examine his collection of ape faecal samples for plasmodium parasites, finding a likely candidate for the form that causes malaria in humans.[11]

In the eighties, Sharp collaborated with Desmond G. Higgins during the creation of CLUSTAL,[12] [13] a suite of multiple sequence alignment programs that have become widely used and highly influential.[14] His research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).[15] His former doctoral students include Kenneth H. Wolfe.

Awards and honours

Sharp was elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 1992,[3] and was President of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. He was elected member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1993,[8] a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2010[4] and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2013.[16]

Personal life

Sharps's entry in Who's Who lists his recreations as hill walking, pteridology and, since 1967, supporting Nottingham Forest Football Club.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Paul M. Sharp: Computational Biology Tree. academictree.org.
  2. PhD. Trinity College, Dublin. Rates of nucleotide substitution in higher plants and mammals. Kenneth H.. Wolfe. Kenneth H. Wolfe. 1990. 842511087.
  3. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160119102001/http://people.embo.org/profile/paul-m-sharp. Paul M. Sharp University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. EMBO. Hedelberg. 2016-01-19.
  4. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160330014912/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/lists/fellows.pdf . 2016-03-30. Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows as of 2016-05-13. Royal Society of Edinburgh. Edinburgh.
  5. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160412152242/http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/paul-sharp(ed91461c-d4f2-497d-8621-2ec9be212726).html. 2016-04-12. Professor Paul M. Sharp, FRS, FRSE, MRIA: Alan Robertson Chair of Genetics. University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh.
  6. Sharp. P. M.. Hahn. B. H.. Origins of HIV and the AIDS Pandemic. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine. 1. 1. 2011. 10.1101/cshperspect.a006841. 3234451. 22229120. a006841.
  7. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20150917062838/http://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/evolutionary-biology/staff-profiles. 2015-09-17. Staff profiles: Institute of Evolutionary Biology. Edinburgh. University of Edinburgh.
  8. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160413101949/https://www.ria.ie/paul-martin-sharp. 2016-04-13. Paul Martin Sharp BSc, PhD (Edin 1979, 1982). FRS, FRSE. 19 October 2015 . Royal Irish Academy. Dublin.
  9. PhD. University of Edinburgh. Quantitative genetics of Drosophila melanogaster : variation in male mating ability. Paul Martin. Sharp. 1982. . 606022632. 1842/14397.
  10. Hahn. Beatrice H.. Shaw. George M.. Cock. Kevin M. De. Sharp. Paul M.. AIDS as a Zoonosis: Scientific and Public Health Implications. Science. 287. 5453. 2000. 607–614. 10.1126/science.287.5453.607. 10649986. 2000Sci...287..607H.
  11. Gao. Feng. Bailes. Elizabeth. Robertson. David L.. Chen. Yalu. Rodenburg. Cynthia M.. Michael. Scott F.. Cummins. Larry B.. Arthur. Larry O.. Peeters. Martine. Shaw. George M.. Sharp. Paul M.. Hahn. Beatrice H.. Nature. 397. 6718. 1999. 436–441. 10.1038/17130. Origin of HIV-1 in the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes troglodytes. 9989410. 1999Natur.397..436G. 4432185. free.
  12. Higgins. Desmond G.. Sharp. Paul M.. CLUSTAL: a package for performing multiple sequence alignment on a microcomputer. Gene. 73. 1. 1988. 237–244. 10.1016/0378-1119(88)90330-7. 3243435.
  13. Higgins. Desmond G.. Sharp. Paul M.. Fast and sensitive multiple sequence alignments on a microcomputer. Bioinformatics. 5. 2. 1989. 151–153. 10.1093/bioinformatics/5.2.151. 2720464.
  14. 10.1038/514550a. 25355343. The top 100 papers: Nature explores the most-cited research of all time. Nature. 514. 7524. 550–3. 2014. Van Noorden . R. . Maher . B. . Nuzzo . R.. Regina Nuzzo . free.
  15. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160412153135/http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/person/D27A3252-BA7C-4734-BE17-FA922DA50EAE. UK Government grants awarded to Paul M. Sharp. Research Councils UK. Swindon. 2016-04-12.
  16. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20151117102803/https://royalsociety.org/people/paul-sharp-12262/. Professor Paul Sharp FRS. Royal Society. London. 2015-11-17. Anon. 2013. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

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