David Baulcombe

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Sir David Baulcombe
FRS FMedSci
Sir David Baulcombe.jpg
Born
David Charles Baulcombe

(1952-04-07) 7 April 1952 (age 72) [1]
Solihull, West Midlands
NationalityBritish
Alma mater
Known for
SpouseRose Eden (m. 1976) [1]
Children1 son, 3 daughters [1]
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Thesis The Processing and Intracellular Transport of Messenger RNA in a Higher Plant  (1976)
Doctoral advisor John Ingle [6]
Doctoral students
Website

Sir David Charles Baulcombe FRS FMedSci [9] [10] (born 1952) [1] is a British plant scientist and geneticist. As of 2017 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. [5] [11] [12] [13]

Contents

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. [6]

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. [14] [ self-published source? ] In August 1988 Baulcombe left Cambridge for Norwich. He joined the Sainsbury Laboratory as a senior research scientist, [15] 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. [14] 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. [16] 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, [17] was elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 1997 [3] 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 . [18] 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. [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]

With Andrew Hamilton he discovered the small interfering RNA that is the specificity determinant in RNA-mediated gene silencing. [30] Baulcombe's group demonstrated that while viruses can induce gene silencing, some viruses encode proteins that suppress gene silencing. [17] 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 . [31] 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 [32] in 2006 for their work. [33]

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. [34] Baulcombe resides in Norwich. Baulcombe has also received the following honours and awards:


Baulcombe's nomination for the Royal Society reads

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 revolutionise gene discovery in plant biology. [10]

Personal life

Baulcombe is married and has four children. [1] His interests include music, sailing and hill walking. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RNA</span> Family of large biological molecules

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule that is essential for most biological functions, either by performing the function itself or by forming a template for the production of proteins. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) are nucleic acids. The nucleic acids constitute one of the four major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life. RNA is assembled as a chain of nucleotides. Cellular organisms use messenger RNA (mRNA) to convey genetic information that directs synthesis of specific proteins. Many viruses encode their genetic information using an RNA genome.

Gene silencing is the regulation of gene expression in a cell to prevent the expression of a certain gene. Gene silencing can occur during either transcription or translation and is often used in research. In particular, methods used to silence genes are being increasingly used to produce therapeutics to combat cancer and other diseases, such as infectious diseases and neurodegenerative disorders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Fire</span> American biologist and professor of pathology and genetics

Andrew Zachary Fire is an American biologist and professor of pathology and of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Craig C. Mello, for the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi). This research was conducted at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and published in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argonaute</span> Protein that plays a role in RNA silencing process

The Argonaute protein family, first discovered for its evolutionarily conserved stem cell function, plays a central role in RNA silencing processes as essential components of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). RISC is responsible for the gene silencing phenomenon known as RNA interference (RNAi). Argonaute proteins bind different classes of small non-coding RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs), small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs). Small RNAs guide Argonaute proteins to their specific targets through sequence complementarity, which then leads to mRNA cleavage, translation inhibition, and/or the initiation of mRNA decay.

RNA silencing or RNA interference refers to a family of gene silencing effects by which gene expression is negatively regulated by non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs. RNA silencing may also be defined as sequence-specific regulation of gene expression triggered by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). RNA silencing mechanisms are conserved among most eukaryotes. The most common and well-studied example is RNA interference (RNAi), in which endogenously expressed microRNA (miRNA) or exogenously derived small interfering RNA (siRNA) induces the degradation of complementary messenger RNA. Other classes of small RNA have been identified, including piwi-interacting RNA (piRNA) and its subspecies repeat associated small interfering RNA (rasiRNA).

Thomas Tuschl is a German biochemist and molecular biologist, known for his research on RNA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Ambros</span> American developmental biologist (born 1953)

Victor R. Ambros is an American developmental biologist who discovered the first known microRNA (miRNA). He is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Gary Bruce Ruvkun is an American molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Ruvkun discovered the mechanism by which lin-4, the first microRNA (miRNA) discovered by Victor Ambros, regulates the translation of target messenger RNAs via imperfect base-pairing to those targets, and discovered the second miRNA, let-7, and that it is conserved across animal phylogeny, including in humans. These miRNA discoveries revealed a new world of RNA regulation at an unprecedented small size scale, and the mechanism of that regulation. Ruvkun also discovered many features of insulin-like signaling in the regulation of aging and metabolism. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline Dean</span> British botanist

Dame Caroline Dean is a British plant scientist working at the John Innes Centre. She is focused on understanding the molecular controls used by plants to seasonally judge when to flower. She is specifically interested in vernalisation — the acceleration of flowering in plants by exposure to periods of prolonged cold. She has also been on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize from 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RNA interference</span> Biological process of gene regulation

RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules are involved in sequence-specific suppression of gene expression by double-stranded RNA, through translational or transcriptional repression. Historically, RNAi was known by other names, including co-suppression, post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS), and quelling. The detailed study of each of these seemingly different processes elucidated that the identity of these phenomena were all actually RNAi. Andrew Fire and Craig C. Mello shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on RNAi in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which they published in 1998. Since the discovery of RNAi and its regulatory potentials, it has become evident that RNAi has immense potential in suppression of desired genes. RNAi is now known as precise, efficient, stable and better than antisense therapy for gene suppression. Antisense RNA produced intracellularly by an expression vector may be developed and find utility as novel therapeutic agents.

Michael Webster Bevan is a professor at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK.

Olivier Voinnet is a French biologist and professor of RNA biology at the ETH Zurich. Voinnet obtained his PhD in 2001 in England in the group of David Baulcombe and later obtained a position as an independent group leader at the CNRS in Strasbourg where he was promoted to Directeur de Recherche in 2005. In 2010, he moved to ETH Zurich where he was appointed a full professor of RNA Biology. Voinnet's published articles have been subject to allegations of image manipulation, leading to multiple corrections and retractions: as of 2022 nine of Voinnet's scientific articles have been retracted, five others have received an expression of concern, and 25 others have been corrected.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Allshire</span> British academic

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">RNA silencing suppressor p19</span> Viral protein

RNA silencing suppressor p19 is a protein expressed from the ORF4 gene in the genome of tombusviruses. These viruses are positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that infect plant cells, in which RNA silencing forms a widespread and robust antiviral defense system. The p19 protein serves as a counter-defense strategy, specifically binding the 19- to 21-nucleotide double-stranded RNAs that function as small interfering RNA (siRNA) in the RNA silencing system. By sequestering siRNA, p19 suppresses RNA silencing and promotes viral proliferation. The p19 protein is considered a significant virulence factor and a component of an evolutionary arms race between plants and their pathogens.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">RNA-directed DNA methylation</span> RNA-based gene silencing process

RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) is a biological process in which non-coding RNA molecules direct the addition of DNA methylation to specific DNA sequences. The RdDM pathway is unique to plants, although other mechanisms of RNA-directed chromatin modification have also been described in fungi and animals. To date, the RdDM pathway is best characterized within angiosperms, and particularly within the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. However, conserved RdDM pathway components and associated small RNAs (sRNAs) have also been found in other groups of plants, such as gymnosperms and ferns. The RdDM pathway closely resembles other sRNA pathways, particularly the highly conserved RNAi pathway found in fungi, plants, and animals. Both the RdDM and RNAi pathways produce sRNAs and involve conserved Argonaute, Dicer and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase proteins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alberto Kornblihtt</span> Argentine molecular biologist

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Anon (2014). "Baulcombe, Prof. Sir David (Charles)" . Who's Who (online Oxford University Press  ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U12688.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ↑ Baulcombe, D. (2004). "RNA silencing in plants". Nature. 431 (7006): 356–363. Bibcode:2004Natur.431..356B. doi:10.1038/nature02874. PMID   15372043. S2CID   4421274.
  3. 1 2 3 "EMBO member: David Baulcombe". people.embo.org. Archived from the original on 6 August 2017.
  4. 1 2 "David Baulcombe International Balzan Prize Foundation". balzan.org. Archived from the original on 22 May 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 David Baulcombe publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  6. 1 2 Baulcombe, David (1976). The Processing and Intracellular Transport of Messenger RNA in a Higher Plant (1976) (PhD thesis). University of Edinburgh. hdl:1842/14914. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.641386. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  7. ↑ Voinnet, Olivier (2001). Molecular analysis of post-transcriptional gene silencing : mechanisms and roles. copac.jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of East Anglia. OCLC   556857695. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.390649.
  8. ↑ Martienssen, Robert A. (1986). The molecular genetics of alpha-amylase gene families in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). copac.jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   499910070. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.382600.
  9. 1 2 Anon (2001). "Professor Sir David Baulcombe FMedSci FRS". royalsociety.org. London. Archived from the original on 23 November 2015. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." -- "Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  10. 1 2 3 "David Baulcombe election certificate EC/2001/03". Royal Society. Archived from the original on 17 January 2014.
  11. ↑ David Baulcombe publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  12. ↑ "Interview with Professor Baulcombe from in-cites website". in-cites.com. Archived from the original on 25 June 2007.
  13. ↑ "Biography from the American Phytopathological Society 2002 Awards (p.4)" (PDF). apsnet.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 June 2011.
  14. 1 2 3 "David Baulcombe cv". Archived from the original on 3 January 2010. Retrieved 15 September 2009.
  15. ↑ Baulcombe, D. (2007). "David Baulcombe". Current Biology . 17 (3): R73–R74. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2007.01.022 . PMID   17328111. S2CID   20568141.
  16. ↑ Cambridge University Department of Plant Sciences news Archived 1 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  17. 1 2 American Phytopathological Society Archived 29 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  18. ↑ "Embo editorial board". nature.com/emboj. Archived from the original on 25 January 2009.
  19. ↑ Hamilton, A.; Voinnet, O.; Chappell, L.; Baulcombe, D. (2002). "Two classes of short interfering RNA in RNA silencing". The EMBO Journal. 21 (17): 4671–4679. doi:10.1093/emboj/cdf464. PMC   125409 . PMID   12198169.
  20. ↑ Papaefthimiou, I.; Hamilton, A.; Denti, M.; Baulcombe, D.; Tsagris, M.; Tabler, M. (2001). "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. doi:10.1093/nar/29.11.2395. PMC   55696 . PMID   11376158.
  21. ↑ Dalmay, T.; Hamilton, A.; Rudd, S.; Angell, S.; Baulcombe, D. (2000). "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. doi: 10.1016/S0092-8674(00)80864-8 . PMID   10850496. S2CID   2103803.
  22. ↑ Burton, R.; Gibeaut, D.; Bacic, A.; Findlay, K.; Roberts, K.; Hamilton, A.; Baulcombe, D.; Fincher, G. (2000). "Virus-induced silencing of a plant cellulose synthase gene". The Plant Cell. 12 (5): 691–706. doi:10.1105/tpc.12.5.691. PMC   139921 . PMID   10810144.
  23. ↑ Dalmay, T.; Hamilton, A.; Mueller, E.; Baulcombe, D. (2000). "Potato virus X amplicons in arabidopsis mediate genetic and epigenetic gene silencing". The Plant Cell. 12 (3): 369–379. doi:10.1105/tpc.12.3.369. PMC   139837 . PMID   10715323.
  24. ↑ Jones, L.; Hamilton, A.; Voinnet, O.; Thomas, C.; Maule, A.; Baulcombe, D. (1999). "RNA-DNA interactions and DNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene silencing". The Plant Cell. 11 (12): 2291–2301. doi:10.1105/tpc.11.12.2291. PMC   144133 . PMID   10590159.
  25. ↑ Hamilton, W.; Boccara, M.; Robinson, D.; Baulcombe, D. (1987). "The complete nucleotide sequence of tobacco rattle virus RNA-1". The Journal of General Virology. 68 (10): 2563–2575. doi: 10.1099/0022-1317-68-10-2563 . PMID   3668507.
  26. ↑ Boccara, M.; Hamilton, W.; Baulcombe, D. (1986). "The organisation and interviral homologies of genes at the 3' end of tobacco rattle virus RNA1". The EMBO Journal. 5 (2): 223–229. doi:10.1002/j.1460-2075.1986.tb04202.x. PMC   1166722 . PMID   16453668.
  27. ↑ Lu, J.; Zhang, C.; Baulcombe, D. C.; Chen, Z. J. (2012). "Maternal siRNAs as regulators of parental genome imbalance and gene expression in endosperm of Arabidopsis seeds". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (14): 5529–5534. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109.5529L. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1203094109 . PMC   3325730 . PMID   22431617.
  28. ↑ Baulcombe, D. C.; Saunders, G. R.; Bevan, M. W.; Mayo, M. A.; Harrison, B. D. (1986). "Expression of biologically active viral satellite RNA from the nuclear genome of transformed plants". Nature. 321 (6068): 446. Bibcode:1986Natur.321..446B. doi:10.1038/321446a0. S2CID   4309327.
  29. ↑ Achard, P.; Herr, A; Baulcombe, D. C.; Harberd, N. P. (2004). "Modulation of floral development by a gibberellin-regulated microRNA". Development. 131 (14): 3357–65. doi:10.1242/dev.01206. PMID   15226253. S2CID   15553199.
  30. ↑ Hamilton, A. J.; Baulcombe, D. (1999). "A Species of Small Antisense RNA in Posttranscriptional Gene Silencing in Plants". Science. 286 (5441): 950–952. doi:10.1126/science.286.5441.950. PMID   10542148.
  31. ↑ Fire, A.; Xu, S.; Montgomery, M. K.; Kostas, S. A.; Driver, S. E.; Mello, C. C. (1998). "Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans". Nature. 391 (6669): 806–811. Bibcode:1998Natur.391..806F. doi:10.1038/35888. PMID   9486653. S2CID   4355692.
  32. ↑ "No Nobel for You: Top 10 Nobel Snubs: Scientific American Slideshows". scientificamerican. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  33. ↑ Daneholt, Bertil. "Advanced Information: RNA interference". The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2006. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  34. ↑ "No. 59090". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 June 2009. p. 1.
  35. ↑ "Franklin Medallist David Baulcombe". fi.edu. Archived from the original on 15 May 2008.
  36. ↑ "Epigenetics researcher a 2012 Balzan prizewinner | Laboratory Product News". Archived from the original on 15 September 2012. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  37. ↑ "2014 Gruber Genetics Prize Press Release | The Gruber Foundation". gruber.yale.edu. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
  38. ↑ "List of all Honorary Graduates and Chancellor's Medallists". warwick.ac.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
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