Ewan Birney facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ewan Birney
|
|
|---|---|
Ewan Birney in 2014
|
|
| Born |
John Frederick William Birney
6 December 1972 Paddington, London, England
|
| Other names | Ewan Birney John Birney |
| Education | Eton College |
| Alma mater |
|
| Known for |
|
| Spouse(s) |
Barley Laycock
(m. 2003) |
| Children | Two |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields |
|
| Institutions |
|
| Thesis | Sequence alignment in bioinformatics (2000) |
| Doctoral advisor | Richard Durbin |
Ewan Birney (born December 6, 1972) is a leading scientist in the field of genomics. He is currently the Executive Director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). This is a big research center for life sciences. He also helps lead Genomics England, which works with DNA information. Ewan Birney is known for creating new tools and methods in bioinformatics and computational biology. These tools help scientists understand our DNA better.
Contents
Ewan Birney's Education
Ewan Birney went to Eton College, a famous school in the United Kingdom. Before college, he spent a year working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. There, he worked with important scientists like James Watson.
He studied Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and earned his first degree in 1996. Later, he got his PhD from the University of Cambridge. For his PhD, he worked at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. His research focused on how to line up DNA sequences using computer programs.
Research and Career Highlights
Ewan Birney has been involved in many important projects. From 2000 to 2003, he organized something called GeneSweep. This was a fun competition where scientists guessed how many genes were in the human genome.
Understanding the Human Genome
Birney helped create the Ensembl genome browser. This is a website that lets scientists look at and understand DNA information. He played a big part in mapping the entire Human Genome in 2000. He also helped analyze how genes work in the ENCODE project. His work has helped scientists understand the DNA of humans, mice, chickens, and other animals.
Developing Bioinformatics Tools
Ewan Birney is famous for his work on the ENCODE project. He also helped create many useful tools for bioinformatics and computational biology. These tools are computer programs that help scientists study biological data. Some of these tools include PairWise, GeneWise, and GenomeWise. He also worked with other scientists to create tools like Exonerate and Velvet assembler. He has contributed to other important databases like Pfam and InterPro.
His research group studies how DNA differs between people and animals. They also look at how these differences affect health. His work has received funding from many important research organizations.
Advisory Roles and Boards
Ewan Birney also advises different scientific groups. He works with Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a company that develops new ways to read DNA. He also serves on the board of Eton College, his old school. He has been part of many other important scientific boards around the world.
Awards and Honours
Ewan Birney has received many awards for his scientific work.
- In 2002, he was named one of the top young innovators by MIT Technology Review.
- In 2003, he gave the first Crick Lecture at the Royal Society.
- In 2005, he won the Overton Prize. This award recognized his efforts to make scientific information and tools available for free to everyone. He believes that genome information should be open and accessible.
- He also received the Benjamin Franklin Award in Bioinformatics in 2005. This award highlighted his strong support for open science. He pushed for research data to be shared freely.
In 2012, he became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. His election recognized his new ideas in genome analysis. He developed ways to find important parts of DNA, like enhancers and promoters, which control genes.
He has also received honorary degrees from universities in London and Estonia. In 2015, he became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2019, he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen. This is another high honor in the UK.
Personal Life
Ewan Birney got married in 2003 and has two children.
