13 Facts About David Baulcombe

Sir David Charles Baulcombe was born on 1952 and is a British plant scientist and geneticist.

David Baulcombe was born in Solihull, West Midlands.

David Baulcombe received his Bachelor of Science degree in botany from the University of Leeds in 1973 at the age of 21.

David Baulcombe continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1977 for research on Messenger RNA in vascular plants supervised by John Ingle.

David Baulcombe returned to the United Kingdom then, where he joined the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge and started his career as an independent scientist.

At the PBI, David Baulcombe initially held the position of Higher Scientific Officer, and was promoted to Principal Scientific Officer in April 1986.

David Baulcombe joined the Sainsbury Laboratory as a senior research scientist, and served as head of laboratory between 1990 and 1993 and between 1999 and 2003.

In March 2007 it was announced that David Baulcombe would become the next Professor of Botany at Cambridge University as a Royal Society Research Professor, taking up his post in September 2007.

David Baulcombe served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2015.

David Baulcombe's group demonstrated that while viruses can induce gene silencing, some viruses encode proteins that suppress gene silencing.

In June 2009, David Baulcombe was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II.

David Baulcombe has made an outstanding contribution to the inter-related areas of plant virology, gene silencing and disease resistance.

David Baulcombe discovered a specific signalling system and an antiviral defence system in plants.