Babraham scientists recognised with international accolades

27th July 2007

Two scientists from the Babraham Institute have recently been elected to memberships of prestigious international societies, recognising world-leading research and leadership in their fields.

Professor Michael J. Berridge, Emeritus Fellow at Babraham and pioneer of the field of cell signalling, has been elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, which has included Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison and Louis Pasteur among its elite.

Dr Peter Fraser has been elected to the membership of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO), which includes some of the leading researchers in Europe and represents a highly dynamic cross-section of the life sciences community.

Professor Berridge's discovery of the key role that calcium plays in regulating cellular activity and orchestrating cellular communication has given insight into medical conditions like hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia and heart failure, cancer and bipolar disorders. His ground-breaking research and leadership in the field have earned him a plethora of prestigious international awards, including: the Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics; the Gairdner Foundation International Award for outstanding achievement in biomedical research; the King Faisal International Prize in Science; the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award; the Louis Jeantet Prize in Medicine and most recently the Shaw Prize, dubbed the Nobel Prize of the East, which honours individuals who have achieved significant breakthroughs in academic and scientific research, and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind.

Studies of gene organisation in Peter Fraser's group are revealing how DNA sequences at distant points on a chromosome come together in the nucleus and providing new insights into understanding how gene expression is regulated in mammals. Genes and special sequence in the genome that regulate them commute to specialised sites in the cell nucleus, called 'transcription factories', in order to become activated and start work. Multiple genes can be docked at one factory at the same time but occasionally get too close, resulting in the genes fusing together. This has been shown to be the case in Burkitt's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, and may represent a common and fundamental step in cancer development. Ultimately, these studies could have wide-ranging implications in human health and disease and could be important in the treatment of cancer patients.

Photographs are available on request

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Notes for Editors:

The Babraham Institute is a charitable organisation devoted to biomedical research and is an institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The Institute’s research is focused on understanding the biological events that underlie the normal functions of cells and on how their failure or abnormality may lead to disease. As such, Institute scientists are striving to find cures for conditions where there is currently no treatment or where the existing treatment is not fully effective or causes serious side effects. The latest technologies are being used to study the basis of conditions such as neurodegenerative disorders, birth defects, cancer and diseases of the immune and cardiovascular systems. With a strategic focus on ‘healthy ageing’, novel approaches for tackling chronic diseases and public health concerns like obesity are being discovered. The Institute’s innovative research is commercialised through Babraham Bioscience Technologies (BBT) Ltd, which also manages Babraham’s vibrant Bioincubator on the Babraham Research Campus, six miles south-east of Cambridge.  Website: www.babraham.co.uk

About the American Philosophical Society:

The American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” The Society honours leading scholars, scientists and professionals through elected membership and provides opportunities for multidisciplinary, intellectual fellowship. Research, discovery and education is supported through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications, prizes and exhibitions. Members include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur and Albert Einstein and indicate the scientific, humanistic, and public accomplishments members. Today the Society has 960 elected members, 804 resident members and 156 international members from around thirty foreign countries. Since 1900, more than 260 members have received the Nobel Prize.

About EMBO:

The European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) promotes excellence in the molecular life sciences in Europe through targeted programmes and activities. Established in 1964, the founders of EMBO showed an incredible vision when they established the organisation; they were true motors of change, even revolutionaries, who raised the level of biological research in Europe by adhering to the highest standards of scientific excellence. The EMBO membership includes some of the leading researchers in Europe and represents a highly dynamic cross-section of the life sciences community. The organisation elects new members annually on the basis of proven excellence in research. Currently there are over 1200 elected EMBO Members in Europe and over 70 associate members globally. More than 43 members have been awarded the Nobel Prize and others have strong links with industry. EMBO is funded predominantly by the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC), an intergovernmental organisation comprising 25 member states. Together with EMBO, EMBC promotes a strong pan-European approach to research and its membership includes most European Union states as well as some neighbouring countries.

Biographical notes:

Sir Michael Berridge, FRS, (b.1938) is an Emeritus Fellow at the Babraham Institute and Honorary Professor of Cell Signalling at the University of Cambridge. Graduating from the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Rhodesia in 1960 with First Class Honours, he attained his PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1965. He then carried out post-doctoral research in the USA (University of Virginia and Case Western Reserve University) before returning to Cambridge in 1969 to take up a position with the Agricultural and Food Research Council's (AFRC) Unit of Invertebrate Chemistry and Physiology, based in the University's Zoology Department. After a long professional association with the Babraham Institute he formerly joined the Laboratory of Molecular Signalling at the Babraham Institute in 1990. He is a fellow of Trinity College and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1984. He is also a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (1999). He was awarded the prestigious Shaw Prize in 2005, dubbed the Nobel Prize of the East, for his pioneering work in the field of cell signalling; this international accolade consists of three annual prizes in the fields of life science and medicine, astronomy and mathematical sciences, each bearing a monetary award of $1 million US dollars.

Peter Fraser trained at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill London, before setting up his own research group at Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam in 1993. He became a Senior Fellow of the Medical Research Council in 1999 and moved to the Babraham Institute in Cambridge to become Head of the Laboratory of Chromatin and Gene Expression. Peter's main interests are in understanding transcriptional regulation of gene expression in mammals. His group pioneered techniques to investigate higher-order chromatin interactions and was first to show that long-range transcriptional enhancers directly contact their target genes through formation of large chromatin loops in vivo. His recent work is focussed on long-range intra- and inter-chromosomal interactions between multiple genes in RNA polymerase II-enriched, sub-nuclear compartments known as transcription factories. Of key importance was the discovery that all genes, and their associated regulatory elements, must migrate to these limited sites to be transcribed, with functional implications for genome-wide coordinate gene control, tissue-specific nuclear organisation of the genome and the genesis of cancers.