Sydney Brenner
Adjunct Professor of Biology, The Salk Institute

e-mail: sbrenner@salk.edu

Vertebrate Gene Regulation and Genome Evolution

Sydney Brenner, a distinguished professor, is one of the past century's leading pioneers in genetics and molecular biology. Most recently, Brenner has been studying vertebrate gene and genome evolution. His work in this area has resulted in new ways of analyzing gene sequences, which has resulted in a new understanding of the evolution of vertebrates.

Among his many notable discoveries, Brenner established the existence of messenger RNA and demonstrated how the order of amino acids in proteins is determined. He also conducted pioneering work with the roundworm, a model organism now widely used to study genetics. His research with Caenorhabditis elegans garnered insights into aging, nerve cell function and controlled cell death, or apoptosis.

Dr. Brenner was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Medicine. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Recipient of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, 1971.

Brenner, S.; Jacob, F.; Meselson, M. An unstable intermediate carrying information from genes to ribosomes for protein synthesis. Nature 190:576-581; 1961.

Brenner, S.; Horne, R.W. A negative staining method for high resolution electron microscopy of viruses. Biochim.Biophys.Acta 34:103- 110; 1959.

Crick, F.H.C.; Barnett, L.; Brenner, S.; Watts-Tobin, R.J. General nature of the genetic code for proteins. Nature, 192: 1227-1232; 1961.

Brenner, S. The genetics of Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 77:71-94; 1974.

Brenner, S.; Elgar, G.; Sanford, R.; Macrae, A.; Venkatesh, B.; Aparicio, S. Characterization of the pufferfish (Fugu) Genome as a compact model vertebrate genome. Nature, Vol. 366, 265- 267, 1993

Medicine and science, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
D.phil., chemistry, Oxford University, England
Postdoctoral fellow, Virus Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley