Michael Ashburner (born May 23, 1942, Sussex, England) is a professor ofgenetics in the University of Cambridge and is the former head of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). May 23 is the 143rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (144th in leap years). ... This article is about the year. ... Sussex as a traditional county. ... Genetics (from the Greek genno γεννώ= give birth) is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. ... The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, with one of the most selective sets of entry requirements in the United Kingdom. ... The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) part of EMBL is a centre for research and services in bioinformatics. ... The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is a molecular biology research institution supported by 18 European countries. ...

Ashburner received B.A. in Natural Sciences Tripos (Genetics) in 1964, his Ph.D. from the Department of Genetics in 1968, and was awarded a Sc.D. in 1978, all from Cambridge. 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Sc. ... 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ...

Ashburner received the G.J. Mendel Medal from the Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic in 1998 and the George W. Beadle Medal of the Genetics Society of America in 1999. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence. ...

Committees he has served on include the European Drosophila Stock Centre, Sweden, Board of Management 1978-1995. HE also played an important role on the NIH Oversight Committee, Drosophila Stock Centre in Indiana 1989.

Research on Drosophila

Drosophila melanogaster has been extensively used as a model organism for the study of genetics. It has more recently become invaluable in the study of the genetics of development owing to the pioneering work of Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard and Eric F. Wieschaus. Binomial name Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, 1830 dorsal view Drosophila melanogaster (Black-bellied Dew-lover) a dipteran (two-winged) insect, is the species of fruit fly that is commonly used in genetic experiments; it is among the most important model organisms. ... Developmental biology is the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop. ... Edward B. Lewis (May 20, 1918–July 21, 2004) was an American geneticist, the winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Medicine. ... Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (born October 12, 1942 in Magdeburg) is a German biologist. ... Dr. Eric F. Wieschaus (born June 8, 1947) is an American developmental biologist, much of his research has focused on embryogenesis in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. ...

Most of his research has been on the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. Ashburner's career began in the early period of molecular biology prior to the development of most of the techniques in use today, as recombinant DNA, Northern/Southern/Western blotting. Nevertheless, by observing patterns of "puffing" in polytene chromosomes, he established the existence of a cascade of genetic controls in the post-larval development triggered by ecdysone. The Ashburner model, of 1974, became a paradigm for metazoan gene regulation inasmuch as the Jacob-Monod model did for prokaryotes. Space-filling model of a section of DNA molecule Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions specifying the biological development of all cellular forms of life (and many viruses). ... Phyla Subkingdom Parazoa Porifera (sponges) Subkingdom Agnotozoa Placozoa Orthonectida Rhombozoa Subkingdom Metazoa Radiata Cnidaria Ctenophora - Comb jellies Bilateria Protostomia Acoelomorpha Platyhelminthes - Flatworms Nemertina - Ribbon worms Gastrotricha Gnathostomulida - Jawed worms Micrognathozoa Rotifera - Rotifers Acanthocephala Priapulida Kinorhyncha Loricifera Entoprocta Nematoda - Roundworms Nematomorpha - Horsehair worms Cycliophora Mollusca - Mollusks Sipuncula - Peanut worms Annelida - Segmented... François Jacob (June 17, 1920 Nancy, France -- ) is a French biologist, who together with Jacques Monod, originated the idea that control of enzyme levels in all cells happens through feedback on transcription. ... Jacques Lucien Monod (February 9, 1910 - May 31, 1976) was a biologist and a Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine in 1965. ...

Ashburner was an early pioneer in the application of computers to biology. His contributions include his active participation in setting up Flybase and the development of ontologies to allow machine-searchable annotation of biological information, as Geneontology. He was also a member of the consortium that eventually sequenced and annotated the melanogaster genome. A prolonged effort by his laboratory to characterise the Adh region became invaluable for validating annotation strategies when large-scale genome information became available. Binomial name Drosophila melanogaster Drosophila melanogaster (Black-bellied Dew-lover) a dipteran (two-winged) insect, is the species of fruit fly that is commonly used in genetic experiments; it is among the most important model organisms. ...

In Cambridge, Michael Ashburner and his colleagues have received funding on numerous occasions for their studies on Drosophila genomics and the development of a primer set to amplify fragments of genomic DNA highly desirable for chromatin IP, DNA binding and transcriptional profiling studies. Chromatin is the substance of a chromosome and consists of a complex of DNA and protein in eukaryotic cells. ...

The importance of Ashburner's work is evident in that, his in depth study of Drosophila has led to significant advances in biology.

Further reading

• Ashburner, M., Chihara, C., Meltzer, P. and Richards, G.; Temporal control of puffing activity in polythene chromosomes. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 38: 655-662. (1974)

External Links

• Ashburner profile, at Department of Genetics - University of Cambridge]
• Ashburner works, at NCBI
• Flybase.net
• Geneontology.org
• The Adh Region