Edwin Southern

Sir Edwin Mellor Southern, FRS (born 7 June 1938)^[3] is an English Lasker Award-winning molecular biologist, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. He is most widely known for the invention of the Southern blot,^[4] now a common laboratory procedure.^{[1][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

Early life and Education

Southern was born in Burnley, Lancashire and educated at Burnley Grammar School.^[1] He has a brother named John Southern and a sister Kay Monie. He went on to read Chemistry at the University of Manchester (BSc Hons., 1958). He continued as a graduate student (then Demonstrator, 1963) in the Department of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, where he was awarded his PhD in 1962.^[12]

Career and Research

Southern is also the Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of Oxford Gene Technology. He is also the founder and chairman of a Scottish charity, The Kirkhouse Trust, which aims to promote education and research in the Natural Sciences, particularly the biological and medical sciences. In addition the Edina Trust was founded to promote science in schools. These charities are financed using royalty income from licensing microarray technology.

Southern blot

The Southern blot is used for DNA analysis and was routinely used for genetic fingerprinting and paternity testing prior to the development of microsatellite markers for this purpose. The procedure is also frequently used to determine the number of copies of a gene in the genome. The concepts of the Southern blot were used in the development and creation of the modern microarray slide, which is an extensively used experimental tool. The northern blot is a similar procedure for RNA, playing off the Southern name. The western blot, an important research tool in protein detection, is a further play on the Southern blot.

DNA microarray

Southern founded Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) in 1995,^[2] a company that developed DNA microarray technology. OGT won a 1999 patent infringement lawsuit against Affymetrix based on his patent holdings in microarray technology.^[13]

Awards and honours

In 1990, Southern was one of the winners of the Gairdner Foundation International Award.^[14] In 1998 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London.^[15] He was made a Knight Bachelor in the June 2003 Birthday Honours for services to the development of DNA microarray technologies. In 2005 he was awarded the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research,^[3][16] jointly with Alec Jeffreys of the University of Leicester for his invention of the Southern blot.^[17] In 2005 he was also awarded the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Award for outstanding contributions to Biomolecular Technologies.^[18] His nomination for the Royal Society reads:

Dr. Southern has done pioneering work on the organization of DNA sequences in chromosomes. Apart from studies on crab poly-AT carried out in the early 1960s, Southern was the first to determine the nucleotide sequence of a eukaryotic chromosomal DNA fraction, demonstrating that a guinea pig 'satellite' had an unexpectedly simple repetitive structure based on a sequence of six nucleotides. In mouse satellite DNA he showed both short and long range periodicities. These and other studies on repetitive DNA he showed both short and long range periodicities. These and other studies on repetitive DNA sequences enabled him to suggest how non-coding chromosomal DNA may have evolved. Southern has devised valuable methods for DNA analysis. His 'blot' technique, for the identification of specific sequences among large populations of fragments generated by endonucleases, has found extremely widespread and important applications. He has also made important observations on the differential transcription of DNA sequences into RNA, and on patterns of DNA methylation.^[19]

References