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Sir John Sulston
John Sulston was born in 1942 in Cambridge, Great Britain. He began his studies in organic chemistry in his home-town university where he also obtained a Ph.D. in the field of molecular biology. In his research, Sulston observed the cell division and differentiation in the development of tissues of the millimeter-long worm Caenorhabditis elegans. He was able to show that specific cells undergo programmed cell death as an integral part of the normal differentiation process. Sulston also identified the first mutation of a gene participating in the cell death process. In 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for his discoveries on the “genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death”. Professor Sulston was one of the founders of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, where he led a team of several hundred scientists in the United Kingdom's contribution to the Human Genome Project. Since retiring as director of the Institute in 1992 he has worked to ensure that information on genetic data remains freely accessible.
