Professor Allan Bradley will replace John Sulston as head of the Sanger Centre this October, the Wellcome Trust announced last week. The Cambridgeshire laboratories have been responsible for a third of the worldwide project to sequence the entire human genome, now entering its final phase. Bradley's appointment will see a shift in the centre's work, from decoding genetic information to investigating the function of human genes.
Michael Dexter, director of the Wellcome Trust, said Bradley was the candidate of choice because of the work he had done investigating animal gene functions. Trained at Cambridge University, Professor Bradley is currently head of a mouse genetics group at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. Despite the current furore over GM (genetic modification) foods in the UK, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports that Bradley relishes his new appointment, 'even if Prince Charles does not approve'.
A news feature article in the 25 May issue of Nature asked how the new director would cope with the ongoing tension between the public and private projects racing to complete the human genome. Bradley says he is committed to the Wellcome Trust's policy on free public access to genome data, but praises the scientific contribution of Venter, head of the US company Celera Genomics. He claims that having a powerful competitor has energised the publicly-funded Human Genome Project.
In an interview for last week's Sunday Times, Allan Bradley explained why he joined the scientific 'brain drain' from the UK in the 1980s, and how the state of British science has changed in his absence.
Sources and References
-
Changing of the guard
-
Back to the future as British science catches fire
-
New genetics chief takes baton in race to crack the code
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.