Dead at 75, Briton who won Nobel for DNA breakthrough
A BRITISH scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his work in genetics has died aged 75, it was announced yesterday.
Sir John Sulston had been awarded the prize for medicine or physiology in 2002 – along with two of his former colleagues – for work that helped the understanding of how genes control the body’s cell division and cell death.
He had headed Britain’s contribution to the international project to decode the human genome – the complex pattern of chemicals that makes up our DNA.
Sir John was the founder of the Sanger Institute at Hinxton, near Cambridge, where he was director from 1992 to 2000.
The centre, which announced Sir John’s death yesterday, has gone on to become one of the world’s leading centres for genome research.
Professor Sir Mike Stratton, director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: ‘He had a burning and unrelenting commitment to making genome data open to all without restriction and his leadership in this regard is in large part responsible for the free access now enjoyed.
‘We all feel the loss today of a great scientific visionary and leader who made historic, landmark contributions to knowledge of the living world, and established a mission and agenda that defines 21st-century science.’
Sir John, who studied at Cambridge as an undergraduate, led the 500-strong Sanger team which, as part of the international Human Genome Project, sequenced a third of the human genome.
Part of the genome consists of genes which contain all the coded instructions for creating a human being. Jeremy Farrar, director of biomedical research charity Wellcome, said: ‘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.’
Last year the Queen made Sir John a companion of honour in her birthday honours list. At the time of his death, he was chairman of Manchester University’s institute of science, ethics and innovation.