Mark Walport

Last updated

Professor
Sir Mark Walport
FRS FRCP FRCPath FMedSci FRSE
Sir Mark Walport (8656569975) cropped.jpg
Mark Walport
Born
Mark Jeremy Walport

(1953-01-25) 25 January 1953 (age 72) [1]
London, England
Education St Paul's School, London
Alma mater University of Cambridge (PhD) [1]
Known for
Spouse
Julia Elizabeth Neild
​
​
(m. 1986)​
[1]
Children4 [1]
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Immunology
Rheumatology
Institutions
Thesis The biology of complement receptors  (1986)
Doctoral advisor Peter Lachmann [5]
Website gov.uk/government/people/mark-walport

Sir Mark Jeremy Walport (born 25 January 1953 [1] ) is an English medical scientist and was the Government Chief Scientific Adviser in the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2017 [3] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] and Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) from 2017 [13] to 2020. [14] In 2023 he became the Foreign Secretary of The Royal Society (jointly with Alison Noble). [15]

Contents

Education

Walport is the son of a general practitioner and was born in London. He was educated at St Paul's School, London, [1] studied medicine at Clare College, Cambridge, and completed his clinical training at Hammersmith, Guy's and Brompton Hospitals in London. [16] [17] He was awarded a PhD for research into complement receptors under the supervision of Peter Lachmann in 1986 at the University of Cambridge. [18]

Career and research

Previously Walport was Director of the Wellcome Trust from 2003 to 2013. [2] Before this, he was Professor of Medicine (from 1991) and Head of the Division of Medicine (from 1997) at Imperial College London, [16] where he led a research team that focused on the immunology and genetics of rheumatic diseases. [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]

Walport was the eleventh Government Chief Scientific Adviser from 2013 to 2017, succeeding Sir John Beddington.

It was announced in February 2017 that Mark Walport is now Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). [13]

Honours and awards

Walport was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours list for services to medical research. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2017 [27] and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2011. [4] [16] His nomination for the Royal Society reads:

Mark Walport has an overwhelming case for election both for his earlier scientific work on the immunology of systemic LE and the role of complement and of defective apoptosis in its pathogenesis; and, as a general candidate, for his achievements as head of medicine at the Hammersmith Campus of Imperial College and since 2003 as Director of the Wellcome Trust. In the latter role he has provided national and international leadership at the highest level on biomedical research and policy issues and is widely recognised as a world leader in the promotion of biomedical science. [4]

Personal life

Walport is married to Dr Julia Walport MBE (nee Neild), master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Lady Walport is a trustee of the Amber Trust and of Ealing Youth Orchestra. She was made MBE in the 2024 New Year Honours.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Anon (2015). "Walport, Sir Mark (Jeremy)" . Who's Who (online Oxford University Press  ed.). A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U38753.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 Vogel, Gretchen (2003). "United Kingdom: Mark Walport to Take Reins at Wellcome Trust". Science. 299 (5608): 803a–. doi: 10.1126/science.299.5608.803a . PMID   12574591. S2CID   70581694.
  3. 1 2 Callaway, Ewen (2012). "Britain names next chief science adviser: Immunologist Mark Walport, head of one of the world's largest biomedical charities, will take on role in 2013". Nature. 487 (7405): 20. doi: 10.1038/487020a . PMID   22763530.
  4. 1 2 3 Anon (2011). "Sir Mark Walport". Royal Society . Retrieved 5 July 2012. 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 at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)
  5. ↑ Reed, Tanya (11 July 2003). "Wellcome to a new beginning". Reporter: The newspaper of Imperial College London. No. 131.
  6. ↑ Mayor, S. (2012). "Mark Walport will be next UK government chief scientific adviser, cabinet office announces". BMJ. 345: e4621. doi:10.1136/bmj.e4621. PMID   22767620. S2CID   11529948.
  7. ↑ Kain, K. H. (2010). "Funding scientific discovery: An interview with Sir Mark Walport". Disease Models & Mechanisms. 3 (5–6): 265–267. doi: 10.1242/dmm.005710 . PMID   20427555.
  8. ↑ Anon (2012). "Good advice: The UK government's latest appointment offers hope for British science". Nature. 487 (7405): 5–6. doi: 10.1038/487005b . PMID   22763508.
  9. ↑ Gibney, Elizabeth (29 June 2012). "New chief scientific adviser announced". Times Higher Education .
  10. ↑ Mark Walport's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  11. ↑ Sir Mark Walport in conversation with David Cleevely, Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) University of Cambridge on YouTube
  12. ↑ Boulton, G.; Rawlins, M.; Vallance, P.; Walport, M. (2011). "Science as a public enterprise: The case for open data". The Lancet. 377 (9778): 1633–1635. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60647-8. PMID   21571134. S2CID   3048048.
  13. 1 2 "Sir Mark Walport will lead UK Research and Innovation". www.gov.uk (Press release). 2 February 2017. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
  14. ↑ "Dominic Cummings' science obsession: based on fact or fiction?". Times Higher Education (THE). 16 October 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
  15. ↑ "Council". The Royal Society. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  16. 1 2 3 "Dr Sir Mark Walport". Debrett's . Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  17. ↑ Morris, K. (2003). "Mark Walport". The Lancet . 362 (9382): 498–499. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)14090-1. PMID   12927451. S2CID   10861093.
  18. ↑ Walport, Mark Jeremy (1986). The biology of complement receptors (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   59761908. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.383309.
  19. ↑ "Mark Walport, PhD, MB. BChir., Member, Scientific Board". Grand Challenges in Global Health. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  20. ↑ Walport, M.; Foulkes, I.; Weissberg, P.; Morgan, D.; Nebhrajani, S. (2012). "Medical research: No catch to UK charity funding". Nature. 482 (7385): 308. Bibcode:2012Natur.482..308W. doi: 10.1038/482308a . PMID   22337042.
  21. ↑ Collins, P. Y.; Patel, V.; Joestl, S. S.; March, D.; Insel, T. R.; Daar, A. S.; Scientific Advisory Board the Executive Committee of the Grand Challenges on Global Mental Health; Bordin, I. A.; Anderson, E. J.; Dhansay, M.; Phillips, C.; Shurin, R. I.; Walport, W.; Ewart, Y.; Savill, S. E.; Bordin, K.; Costello, S.; Durkin, S.; Fairburn, A.; Glass, A.; Hall, A.; Huang, M. M.; Hyman, V.; Jamison, B. J.; Kaaya, S.; Kapur, P. A.; Kleinman, D. J.; Ogunniyi, W.; Otero-Ojeda, M. A.; Poo, W.; Ravindranath, A. (2011). "Grand challenges in global mental health". Nature. 475 (7354): 27–30. doi:10.1038/475027a. PMC   3173804 . PMID   21734685.
  22. ↑ Yamada, T.; Dautry, A.; Walport, M. (2008). "Ready for avian flu?". Nature. 454 (7201): 162. Bibcode:2008Natur.454..162Y. doi: 10.1038/454162a . PMID   18615064. S2CID   205039550.
  23. ↑ Pickering, M. C.; Warren, J.; Rose, K. L.; Carlucci, F.; Wang, Y.; Walport, M. J.; Cook, H. T.; Botto, M. (2006). "Prevention of C5 activation ameliorates spontaneous and experimental glomerulonephritis in factor H-deficient mice". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (25): 9649–9654. Bibcode:2006PNAS..103.9649P. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0601094103 . PMC   1476693 . PMID   16769899.
  24. ↑ Brown, J. S.; Hussell, T.; Gilliland, S. M.; Holden, D. W.; Paton, J. C.; Ehrenstein, M. R.; Walport, M. J.; Botto, M. (2002). "The classical pathway is the dominant complement pathway required for innate immunity to Streptococcus pneumoniae infection in mice". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99 (26): 16969–16974. Bibcode:2002PNAS...9916969B. doi: 10.1073/pnas.012669199 . PMC   139253 . PMID   12477926.
  25. ↑ Botto, M.; Fong, K. Y.; So, A. K.; Barlow, R.; Routier, R.; Morley, B. J.; Walport, M. J. (1992). "Homozygous hereditary C3 deficiency due to a partial gene deletion". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 89 (11): 4957–4961. Bibcode:1992PNAS...89.4957B. doi: 10.1073/pnas.89.11.4957 . PMC   49207 . PMID   1350678.
  26. ↑ Taylor, P. R.; Carugati, A.; Fadok, V. A.; Cook, H. T.; Andrews, M.; Carroll, M. C.; Savill, J. S.; Henson, P. M.; Botto, M.; Walport, M. J. (2000). "A Hierarchical Role for Classical Pathway Complement Proteins in the Clearance of Apoptotic Cells in Vivo". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 192 (3): 359–366. doi:10.1084/jem.192.3.359. PMC   2193213 . PMID   10934224.
  27. ↑ "RSE Welcomes 60 New Fellows" (Press release). Royal Society of Edinburgh. 15 February 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
Government offices
Preceded by Government Chief Scientific Adviser
2013−2017		Succeeded by
Chris Whitty
Acting
Cultural offices
Preceded by Director of Wellcome Trust
2003–2013		Succeeded by
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