Sir David Charles Baulcombe FRS FMedSci[4] (born 7 April 1952[1][2]) is a British plant scientist and geneticist. As of October 2024[update] he was Head of Group, Gene Expression, in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and the Edward Penley Abraham Royal Society Research Professor and Regius Professor of Botany Emeritus at Cambridge.[7] He held the Regius botany chair in that department from 2007 to 2020.[8][third-party source needed]
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David Baulcombe was born on 7 April 1952 in the United Kingdom, in Solihull, Warwickshire,[1][8] (in England's Midlands), into "a non-scientific family".[9]
He received his Bachelor of Science degree in botany from the University of Leeds in 1973,[9] at the age of 21,[citation needed] and continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1976/1977[9][10] (for research on Messenger RNA in vascular plants supervised by John Ingle[citation needed]).
After his PhD, Baulcombe spent the next three years as a postdoctoral fellow in North America,[citation needed] in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and then in Athens, Georgia, in the United States[9] (respectively, at McGill University from January 1977-November 1978, and then the University of Georgia thereafter, until December 1980[citation needed]). Baulcombe returned to the United Kingdom then, where he was given the opportnity to create his own research group at the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge[9] (PBI, the John Innes Centre[citation needed]). At the PBI, Baulcombe initially held the position of Higher Scientific Officer, and was promoted to Principal Scientific Officer in April 1986.[3][self-published source?]
In August 1988 Baulcombe left Cambridge for Norwich.[citation needed] He joined the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich in 1988, and as of 2007 was a senior research scientist,[9] and also served as head of laboratory between 1990 and 1993 and between 1999 and 2003.[citation needed] In 1998 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of East Anglia, and given a full professorship there in 2002.[3][self-published source?] In March 2007 it was announced that Baulcombe would become the next Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge (as a Royal Society Research Professor[citation needed]), taking up his post in September 2007.[11] Accordingly, in 2008, Baulcombe was also named as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.[citation needed] In 2009, the Cambridge professorship was renamed "Regius Professor of Botany".[12] He was succeeded in the chair by Ottoline Leyser in 2020.[13]
Baulcombe "serves on several [professional] committees and study sections",[8][third-party source needed] and was president of the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology from 2003–2004.[citation needed] In the approximate period of 2007-2009, Baulcombe was a Senior Advisor to The EMBO Journal.[14] He also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2015.[citation needed]
An annotation regarding Baulcombe's 2001 nomination to The Royal Society read that he had
made an outstanding contribution to the inter-related areas of plant virology, gene silencing and disease resistance... discover[ing] a specific signalling system and an antiviral defence system in plants... [leading] to the development of new technologies that promise to revolutionise gene discovery in plant biology.[15][better source needed][verification needed]
Hence, his research interests have mainly been in botany and fundamental biology, in the fields of virus movement, genetic regulation, disease resistance, and RNA and more generally, gene silencing.[according to whom?][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][third-party source needed]
In 1998 Craig Mello, Andrew Fire, and colleagues reported a potent gene silencing effect—observations on the mechanism of RNA interference—after injecting double stranded RNA into Caenorhabditis elegans,[28][29] a discovery notable as a detailed description of what proved to be the correct mechanism of a broad class of phenomena.[28] Baulcombe then, with Andrew Hamilton, discovered a small interfering RNA that is the specificity determinant in RNA-mediated gene silencing in plants.[30][third-party source needed] Baulcombe's group demonstrated "that while viruses can induce gene silencing some viruses encode proteins that suppress gene silencing".[8][third-party source needed] After these initial observations, many laboratories around the world searched for the occurrence of this phenomenon in other organisms.[citation needed] (The leaders of the team reporting the correct mechanism of the phenomena, Fire and Mello, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006 for their work,[28] although some have argued that Baulcombe was among those overlooked for that year's prize.[31])
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.[citation needed]
Honours and awards
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In June 2009, Baulcombe was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2009 Birthday Honours List, "for services to plant science".[32]
Baulcombe has also received the following honours and awards:
- 1997 election to EMBO Membership;[33]
- 2001 election as Fellow of the Royal Society;[4][11]
- 2002 election as Member of the Academia Europaea;[34]
- 2002 recipient of the Ruth Allen Award of the American Phytopathological Society;[8]
- 2002 recipient of the Kumho Science International Award in Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, awarded by the Kumho Cultural Foundation, Korea;[citation needed]
- 2003 co-recipient (with Thomas Tuschl, Craig Mello, an Andrew Fire), of the Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences, awarded by the Wiley Foundation at Rockefeller University;[35][11]
- 2004 recipient of the M. W. Beijerinck Virology Prize, awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences;[citation needed]
- 2005 election as a Foreign Associate Member of the National Academy of Sciences;[11]
- 2005 co-recipient (with Craig Mello and Andrew Fire) of the Massry Prize, awarded by the Massry Foundation and the University of Southern California;[11]
- 2006 recipient of the Royal Medal of The Royal Society, "For his profoundly significant recent discoveries for not only plants but for all of biology and for medicine.";[36]
- 2008 co-recipient (with Gary Ruvkun and Victor Ambros) of the Benjamin Franklin Medal, awarded by The Franklin Institute, "for their discovery of small RNAs that turn off genes";[37][38]
- 2008 co-recipient (with Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun) of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research;[citation needed]
- 2009 recipient of the Harvey Prize, granted by the Technion Israeli Institute for Technology;[citation needed]
- 2010 recipient of the Wolf Prize in Agriculture;[citation needed]
- 2010 Humphry Davy Award of the Royal Society, in its last year of issue, a part of the Humphry Davy and Claude Bernard Lectures, occasional prizes and exchange lectures established by The Royal Society and Académie des Sciences, in this case, given to a senior British scientist with its lecture to be given on a visit to France;[39]
- 2012 recipient of the Balzan Prize for Epigenetics;[40][41]
- 2014 recipient of the Gruber Prize in Genetics;[42]
- 2014 recipient, the inaugural recipient, of the Barbara McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies, from the Maize Genetics Cooperation, for "exceptional contributions in the field of plant epigenetics";[43]
- 2015 election as Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh;[citation needed]
- 2020 election as an Academician in The Pontifical Academy of Sciences;[1]
- 2023 recognition as an honorary Doctor of Science of University of Warwick.[44]
Baulcombe stated in a post dated 2017 that outside of the laboratory, he "promote[s] the use of plant biotechnology for crop improvement... [and that he is] particularly interested in technologies addressing problems in developing countries."[33] He has said he works on plants "because their products are good to eat and wear and write on—and also because plants are often good models for general biology.[14]
As of this date,[when?] Baulcombe resided in Norwich.[citation needed] He has been married to Rose Eden since 1976, and they have four children.[3][2] His interests include music, sailing, and hill walking.[3]
- Taubes, Gary & Baulcombe, David (January 2007). "An Interview With: Prof. David Baulcombe". In-Cites.com. Stamford, CT: Research Services Group, Thomson Scientific. Archived from the original on 25 June 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
This month, in-cites correspondent Gary Taubes talks with Professor David Baulcombe of the John Innes Centre's Sainsbury Laboratory about his highly cited paper, "A species of small antisense RNA in posttranscriptional gene silencing in plants," (Hamilton AJ, Baulcombe DC, Science 286[5441]: 950-2, 1999). This paper is currently ranked at #5 among Plant & Animal Science papers published in the past decade, with 747 citations... .
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
APS Staff & Baulcombe, David Charles (2003). "Ruth Allen Award [2002 awardee biography]" (PDF). Phytopathology. 93 (1). St. Paul, MN: American Phytopathological Society (APS): 23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2024. David Charles Baulcombe was born in Solihull, Warwickshire, United Kingdom in 1952. He received his B.S. degree in botany from the University of Leeds and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. Since 1988, Dr. Baulcombe has been at the Sainsbury Laboratory Norwich, U.K. ... Dr. Baulcombe also has demonstrated that while viruses can induce gene silencing some viruses encode proteins that suppress gene silencing. Dr. Baulcombe is internationally renowned for his research and serves on several committees and study sections. In 2001, Dr. Baulcombe was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
Staff of Curr. Biol. & Baulcombe, David (6 February 2007). "Q & A: David Baulcombe" (interview). Current Biology. 17 (3): R73–R74. Bibcode:2007CBio...17R..73B. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.01.022. PMID 17328111. S2CID 20568141. David Baulcombe was born in the Midlands of the UK into a non-scientific family. He studied botany as an undergraduate at Leeds University (BSc 1973) and started his own research group at the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge after his PhD in Edinburgh (1977) and spells as a postdoc in Montreal and Athens Georgia. He has been in the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich since 1988 where he is a senior research scientist. His research interests have spanned plant hormones, root nodule symbioses, disease resistance, virology and over the last ten years have focused on RNA silencing and epigenetics. David has served as President of the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology and his research has been recognised by various awards, including elections to the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences (foreign associate). His current interests include a systems approach to understanding the role of short silencing RNA in regulatory networks.
Baulcombe, David (1976). The Processing and Intracellular Transport of Messenger RNA in a Higher Plant (PhD thesis). University of Edinburgh. hdl:1842/14914. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.641386. 
Note, the EThOS link appearing here is a [dead link]. University of Cambridge Staff (28 March 2007). "News and Events—Current News". PlantSci.Cam.Ac.UK. University of Cambridge, Department of Plant Sciences. Archived from the original on 1 July 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2024. The Department is pleased to announce the election of Professor David Baulcombe FRS, as the new Professor of Botany with effect from 1 September 2007. Professor Baulcombe, is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory, John Innes Centre in Norwich. Trained as a botanist, his research interests are in the area of plant gene expression generally. As a result of his studies of expressing viral genes in plants, he established the role of small RNAs in RNA silencing, a mechanism for regulation of gene expression that is universal (see an interview). Professor Baulcombe has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards in recognition of his work, including the Massry Prize from the Massry Foundation, University of Southern California in 2005 and the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Science from the Wiley Foundation, Rockefeller University, both shared with Craig Mello and Andrew Fire. He was elected to the Royal Society in 2001, and as a foreign associate member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) in 2005.
EMBO Journal Staff & Baulcombe, David (January 2009). "Editorial Team" Senior Advisors—David C. Baulcombe". Nature.com. Heidelberg, Germany: EMBO Press. Archived from the original on 25 January 2009. Retrieved 7 October 2024. David Baulcombe is in The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich. His lab works on viruses, disease resistance and gene silencing using a combination of genetic, molecular and biological approaches. David works on plants because their products are good to eat and wear and write on - and also because plants are often good models for general biology.
WebCitation.org Staff, and Anon. (2014) [2001]. "Archive item details: Repository—GB 117 The Royal Society". WebCitation.org. [Field = Citation]. Archived from the original on 17 January 2014. 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 revolutionize gene discovery in plant biology.
. This citation purports to be an archived result of a search of a Royal Society database, from the Repository, "GB 117", providing "EC/2001/03" as a reference number (Ref No). A Google Advanced Search of the quoted material returns no leads on the web. Search of the URL and other content fields at Web.Archive.org also fails. Westly, Erica (6 October 2008). "No Nobel for You: Top 10 Nobel Snubs". ScientificAmerican.com. London and Berlin: Springer Nature. [Slide 7.) Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun and David Baulcombe--missed out on the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology]. Archived from the original on 20 March 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2012. ...many felt the scientists who did the research that helped lead to Fire and Mello's discovery--Ambros... and Ruvkun... working with worms and Baulcombe..., plants...--deserved a place in Nobel history as well... Nobel committees rarely revisit research areas for which they've already handed out prizes. In 2008, though, Ambros, Ruvkun and Baulcombe started racking up prestigious honors, such as the Franklin Medal and the Lasker Award, suggesting they might still have a shot at sharing their own Nobel some day.
From the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthoods, St. James’s Palace, London, recorded in The Gazette (London Gazette), issue 59090, 13 June 2009, see Supplement 1, p. 1. EMBO Staff & Baulcombe, David (2017) [1997]. "Details: EMBO Member David Baulcombe". People.EMBO.org. Archived from the original on 6 August 2017. University of Cambridge—United Kingdom—EMBO 1997—Disease resistance, RNA and epigenetics in plants—Much of my current research follows from the discovery in my Norwich laboratory of a novel type of regulatory RNA – siRNA. Current projects in the laboratory focus on the mechanisms of siRNA-mediated regulation and their influence on natural variation. Outside the laboratory I promote the use of plant biotechnology for crop improvement. I am particularly interested in technologies addressing problems in developing countries.
Wiley Foundation Staff (2003). "The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences: Our Award Recipients—2003". Wiley.com. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Foundation, John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved 7 October 2024. The 2nd annual Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences was awarded to Andrew Z. Fire, Craig C. Mello, Thomas Tuschl, and David Baulcombe for their respective contributions to discoveries of novel mechanisms for regulating gene expression by small interfering RNAs (siRNA).
Green, Pamela (April 2011). "2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science is Presented to..." Journal of the Franklin Institute. 348 (3). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier: 500ff. doi:10.1016/j.jfranklin.2010.05.004. Retrieved 8 October 2024. 2008 Benjamin Franklin medal in life science is Presented to Victor Ambros, Ph.D. (University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts), Gary Ruvkun, Ph.D. (Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts) and David Baulcombe, Ph.D., FRS (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK).
MGC Staff (2024) [2014]. "McClintock Prize Past Winners—2014: David C. Baulcombe (University of Cambridge)". MaizeGDB.org. Madison, Wisconsin: Maize Genetics Cooperation (MGC). Retrieved 7 October 2024. The Maize Genetics Executive Committee would like to announce that the winner of the inaugural McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies is Prof. Sir David Baulcombe of the University of Cambridge. This award is in recognition of his exceptional contributions in the field of plant epigenetics, a field in which Dr. McClintock was one of the pioneers.
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