Adrian Bird facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sir Adrian Bird
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Adrian Peter Bird
3 July 1947 Rowley Regis, Staffordshire, England
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Catherine Mary Abbott
(m. 1993) |
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| Thesis | The cytology and biochemistry of DNA amplification in the ovary of Xenopus laevis (1972) |
| Doctoral advisor | Max Birnstiel |
| Doctoral students | Rob Klose |
Sir Adrian Peter Bird (born 3 July 1947) is a famous British geneticist. A geneticist is a scientist who studies genes and heredity. He is a professor of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Sir Adrian has spent most of his career in Edinburgh. He is known for his important discoveries about DNA methylation and CpG islands. These discoveries help us understand how genes work and how they can cause diseases like Rett syndrome.
Early Life and Education
Adrian Bird was born in Rowley Regis, England. When he was four, his family moved to Kidderminster. He went to a grammar school in Hartlebury. After school, he studied Biochemistry at the University of Sussex. He then earned his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1970.
Career and Discoveries
After finishing his PhD, Adrian Bird worked as a researcher at Yale University and the University of Zurich. In 1975, he returned to Edinburgh to work at the Medical Research Council. He stayed there for 11 years.
In 1990, Adrian Bird became a professor at the University of Edinburgh. He helped start the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology in Edinburgh. He was the director of this center from 1999 to 2011. He also helped lead the Wellcome Trust, a big charity that supports health research.
Sir Adrian's main research has been about CpG islands and a protein called MeCP2.
- CpG islands are special parts of our DNA. They are often found near genes that are active, meaning they are "switched on."
- DNA methylation is like a chemical tag that can be added to DNA. This tag helps control whether a gene is switched on or off. Sir Adrian's team found that CpG islands are usually not tagged with methylation when genes are active.
His group also discovered that the MeCP2 protein attaches specifically to DNA that has these methylation tags. They found that if this MeCP2 protein doesn't work correctly, it can cause a brain disorder called Rett syndrome. Rett syndrome is a serious condition that affects brain development, mostly in girls.
In 2007, Sir Adrian's lab published exciting news. They showed that they could reverse the effects of Rett syndrome in mice. They did this by putting a working MeCP2 gene back into the mice. This worked even when the mice had advanced symptoms. This discovery gives hope that one day, a similar method might help treat Rett syndrome in humans.
Awards and Honours
Sir Adrian Bird has received many important awards for his scientific work:
- In 1989, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK.
- He received the Gabor Medal and the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 1999.
- In 2005, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen.
- In 2011, he won the Gairdner Foundation International Award.
- He received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2013 for his work on epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of how our genes can be turned on or off without changing the DNA itself.
- In 2014, he was knighted by the Queen for his services to science. This means he can now be called "Sir."
- He won the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine in 2016. This is a major international award, sometimes called the "Nobel Prize of the East."
- In 2018, he received the Buchanan Medal from the Royal Society for his medical discoveries.
- In 2020, he was awarded The Brain Prize, one of the world's largest neuroscience awards.
Personal Life
Adrian Bird is married to Cathy Abbott, who is also a geneticist. They have four children. Sir Adrian has said that he plans to keep working as long as his research group is funded and their work is published.
