John Sulston

John Sulston is a British biologist who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002 “for discoveries concerning ‘genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death”.

He shared the prize with Sydney Brenner and H. Robert Horvitz.

John Sulton is currently Chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, which mission is to observe and analyse the role and responsibilities of science and innovation.

He was one of the founders of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, where he led a team of several hundred scientists in the UK’s contribution to the Human Genome Project.

Sulston was a leading campaigner against the patenting of human genetic information and for fair and open access to medicine. He believes that the world needs an international biomedical treaty to iron out issues over patents and intellectual property since profits in the medical industry are taking precedence over the needs of patients, particularly in the developing world.

He co-authored The Common Thread, an account of the science, politics and ethics of the human genome project in 2002.