John Diffley (biologist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Diffley
FRS FMedSci
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| Born |
John Francis Xavier Diffley
4 March 1958 |
| Alma mater | New York University |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chromatin replication, cell cycle, DNA damage checkpoints |
| Institutions | |
John Francis Xavier Diffley (born 4 March 1958) is an American scientist. He is a biochemist, which means he studies the chemistry of living things. He works as a leader in research at the Francis Crick Institute.
John Diffley is famous for helping us understand how DNA makes copies of itself. This process is called DNA replication. He also figured out how this copying is controlled during the cell cycle. The cell cycle is like a life cycle for cells, where they grow and divide. He also studied how cells react when their DNA gets damaged.
John Diffley's Journey in Science
John Diffley studied at New York University. He earned his Ph.D. degree there in 1985. A Ph.D. is a very high university degree.
After that, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher. This means he continued doing research after getting his Ph.D. He worked with another scientist named Bruce William Stillman at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
In 1990, John Diffley started his own research team. This team worked at the Clare Hall Laboratories. These labs were part of Cancer Research UK. Now, they are part of the Francis Crick Institute.
His team studies how DNA copies itself in living things that have complex cells. These are called eukaryotic cells. This includes animals, plants, and fungi. They look at how this process works and how it is controlled.
Awards and Special Honours
John Diffley has received many important awards and honours for his work. These show how much his research has helped science.
In 1998, he became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). He also joined Academia Europaea in 2009. In 2011, he became a member of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences.
He was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2005. This is a very special honour for scientists in the United Kingdom. He also became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2007. In 2011, he was named a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci).
John Diffley has also won several big prizes. He received the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research in 2003. In 2016, he won the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine. He also got the Canada Gairdner International Award in 2019. In 2020, he was chosen to be a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
