2010 Balfour Lectureship
Dr Andrew Jackson, MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh
Named after the Genetics Society’s first President, this award goes to a young scientist with less than 10 years’ postdoctoral experience.
It is a pleasure to welcome Dr Andrew Jackson as the 2010 Balfour Lecturer to follow in the illustrious footsteps of his 22 predecessors.
Andrew is an MRC Senior Clinical Fellow in Edinburgh at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, within the wider Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine. He is a clinical geneticist whose subspecialty interest is neurogenetics. Although he continues to see patients in the clinic, he is predominantly a hands-on scientist and group leader.
His work focuses on monogenic developmental brain disorders: primary microcephaly and Seckel Syndrome (both disorders with significant reduction in brain size), and Aicardi Goutières Syndrome (AGS), a progressive congenital brain inflammatory disease. Gene identification and functional studies have revealed that reduced cell proliferation in the microcephalies is associated with aberrant DNA repair and disturbed centrosomal function. AGS usually presents at birth with immunological features similar to congenital viral infection, leading to inflammatory changes and calcification in the brain. Causative genes so far turn out to be each of the three subunits of RNase H2 and the nuclease TREX1 that may be normally required for appropriate response to viral invasion.
Members of the Jackson group are dissecting the pathogenic mechanisms underlying these diseases using a diversity of approaches, including further gene identification for these disorders, cellular studies using patient-derived cell lines, as well as both Drosophila and mouse as model organisms.
Andrew, who is also the recipient of a Lister Prize this year, will receive the Balfour award when he presents the most recent details of these parallel projects at the Sanger Institute during the Spring 2010 meeting on Mouse Genetics.