Tom Brown (chemist)

Tom Brown FRSC[2] FRSE[3] (born 10 November 1952) is a British chemist, biotechnologist, and entrepreneur. He is the Professor of Nucleic acid chemistry at the Department of Chemistry[6] and Department of Oncology[7] at the University of Oxford. Currently, he is serving as the President of the Chemical Biology Interface Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry.[8] He is best known for his contribution in the field of DNA Repair,[9][10] DNA Click chemistry,[11][12][13] and in the application of Molecular genetics in forensics and diagnostics.[14][15][16]

Tom Brown
Born (1952-11-10) 10 November 1952[1]
Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Bradford
Known forDNA Repair,
Molecular genetics,
DNA Click chemistry, Primerdesign
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsChemical biology, Nanotechnology
InstitutionsUniversity of Oxford
University of Southampton
University of Edinburgh
ThesisThe chemistry of some imidazoles. (1979)
Doctoral advisorGordon Shaw
Other academic advisorsOlga Kennard OBE FRS
Websitebrowngroupnucleicacidsresearch.org.uk

He co-founded three biotechnology companies: Oswel Research Products, ATDBio, and Primerdesign.[17][18] As of January 2016, he is in the board of directors of last two.[19][20]

Education and career

Brown was born in Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, and attended Broadway Grammar School there. As an undergraduate student, he attended University of Bradford to study chemistry where he obtained his bachelor's degree with first class honours, and was awarded the Griffin and George Prize for being the most outstanding graduate. In 1979, he earned his PhD from the same university, under the supervision of Prof Gordon Shaw. He then carried out his post-doctoral research at the University of Nottingham (with Leslie Crombie and Gerry Pattenden), University of Oxford (with John Jones), and at the University of Cambridge (with Olga Kennard OBE FRS).[1][5]

After these post-doctoral stints, he was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh where he was subsequently promoted to the rank of Reader and then to Professor. In 1995, he moved to the University of Southampton where he worked as a Professor of Chemical Biology.[21] In 2013, Brown again moved, to take up position of the Professor of Nucleic acid chemistry at the University of Oxford where he now holds a joint position at the Department of Chemistry and Department of Oncology.[1][5][6][7] In 2014, he was elected as the President of the Chemical Biology Interface Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry for a term of three years.[8]

Research

In early part of his academic career, Brown studied base-pair mismatch and DNA repair.[22][23] Later he worked on the mutagenic effect of chemically modified DNA bases. In collaboration with Laurence Pearl, he elucidated the structural basis of excision repair by Uracil-DNA glycosylase.[9] His group is also well known for rapid mutation analysis and for the application of Molecular genetics in forensics[14][24] and diagnostics.[15][16] In collaboration with AstraZeneca, they invented Scorpion Primers system, a fluorescence-based real-time PCR method that can identify mutations and Single-nucleotide polymorphism in human genome.[25][26][27] Most recently, his group is focusing on the Click chemistry based chemical modification of DNA and its application in bionanotechnology sector.[11][12][13][28]

As of January 2016, Brown has published more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals, with many of his papers appearing in highly selective journals like Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Cell, Nucleic Acids Research, JACS, and PNAS. His papers have been cited over 18,000 times and he has an h-index 68.[29]

Awards and honours

Brown was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry[2] and Royal Society of Edinburgh.[3]

Apart from that, he has received the following major honours in recognition of his research work:

Companies

While working at the University of Edinburgh, Brown founded Oswel Research Products (the name 'Oswel' came from "Oligonucleotide synthesis" and "Wellcome Trust"), a company which was dedicated to automated DNA synthesis.[17] Later, in 1995, the company moved to Southampton, along with Brown. In the year 1999, when the company had turnover of GBP 2.2 million and a profit of GBP 0.7 million, Eurogentec acquired Oswel.[37][38]

In 2004, Brown co-founded (along with two of his University of Southampton colleagues) Primerdesign, a company which designs and manufactures products for quantitative Real-time polymerase chain reaction.[39][17][20] The company is best known for creating rapid Swine Flu detection kit in 2009, and for creating a test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain in 2020.[40][41][42][43][44][45]

In 2005, Brown founded ATDBio with an aim to synthesize chemically modified oligonucleotides for technical applications. As of June 2014, this company maintains two different labs at Southampton and Oxford.[17][19]

References
  1. "Prof Tom Brown CChem FRSE". Debrett's People of Today. Debrett's. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  2. "Interdisciplinary Award 2009 Winner". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  3. "RSE Fellows" (PDF). Royal Society of Edinburgh. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 March 2016. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  4. "Royal Society of Edinburgh Directory" (PDF). Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  5. "Chemistry World Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2014 Winner". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  6. "Professor Tom Brown – Research Guides". Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford. University of Oxford. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  7. "Tom Brown : Department of Oncology". Department of Oncology, University of Oxford. University of Oxford. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  8. "Chemical Biology Interface Division Council". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  9. Savva, Renos (9 February 1995). "The Structural Basis of Specific Base-Excision Repair by Uracil-DNA Glycosylase". Nature. 373 (6514): 487–493. Bibcode:1995Natur.373..487S. doi:10.1038/373487a0. PMID 7845459. S2CID 4315434.
  10. Leonard, GA; Thomson, J; Watson, WP; Brown, T (December 1990). "High-resolution structure of a mutagenic lesion in DNA". PNAS. 87 (24): 9573–9576. Bibcode:1990PNAS...87.9573L. doi:10.1073/pnas.87.24.9573. PMC 55214. PMID 2263612.
  11. "Study shows click chemistry could provide total chemical DNA synthesis". Phys.org. 10 February 2014. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  12. El-Sagheer, Afaf H.; Brown, Tom (9 February 2010). "Click chemistry with DNA" (PDF). Chemical Society Reviews. 39 (4): 1388–1405. doi:10.1039/B901971P. PMID 20309492.
  13. Thirumurugan, Prakasam; Matosiuk, Dariusz; Jozwiak, Krzysztof (27 March 2013). "Click Chemistry for Drug Development and Diverse Chemical-Biology Applications". Chemical Reviews. 113 (7): 4905–4979. doi:10.1021/cr200409f. PMID 23531040.
  14. Biever, Celeste (11 January 2006). "DNA profiling moves to the scene of the crime". New Scientist. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  15. Rusling, D. A. (12 May 2005). "Four base recognition by triplex-forming oligonucleotides at physiological pH". Nucleic Acids Research. 33 (9): 3025–3032. doi:10.1093/nar/gki625. PMC 1137030. PMID 15911633. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  16. Whitcombe, David; Theaker, Jane; Guy, Simon P.; Brown, Tom; Little, Steve (1999). "Detection of PCR products using self-probing amplicons and fluorescence". Nature Biotechnology. 17 (8): 804–807. doi:10.1038/11751. PMID 10429248. S2CID 2862667.
  17. Houlton, Sarah (2 June 2014). "Triple-stranded success story". Chemistry World. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  18. "Tom Brown PhD, C.Chem., F.R.S.C., F.R.S.E." Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  19. "ATDBio : About us". ATDBio. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  20. "About Primerdesign". Primerdesign. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  21. "Tom Brown : Chemistry". University of Southampton. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  22. Brown, Tom; Kennard, Olga; Kneale, Geoff; Rabinovich, Dov (13 June 1985). "High-resolution structure of a DNA helix containing mismatched base pairs". Nature. 315 (6020): 694–606. Bibcode:1985Natur.315..604B. doi:10.1038/315604a0. PMID 4010774. S2CID 4307701.
  23. Hunter, William N. (10 April 1986). "Structure of an adenine˙cytosine base pair in DNA and its implications for mismatch repair". Nature. 320 (6062): 552–555. Bibcode:1986Natur.320..552H. doi:10.1038/320552a0. PMID 3960137. S2CID 4319887.
  24. French, DJ; Archard, CL; Brown, T; McDowell, DG (December 2001). "HyBeacon probes: a new tool for DNA sequence detection and allele discrimination". Molecular and Cellular Probes. 15 (6): 363–374. doi:10.1006/mcpr.2001.0384. PMID 11851380.
  25. Thelwell, N. (1 October 2000). "Mode of action and application of Scorpion primers to mutation detection". Nucleic Acids Research. 28 (19): 3752–3761. doi:10.1093/nar/28.19.3752. PMC 110766. PMID 11000267.
  26. Mackay, Ian M. (1 July 2007). Real-time PCR in Microbiology: From Diagnosis to Characterization (1st ed.). Horizon Scientific Press. pp. 25–30. ISBN 978-1904455189. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  27. Logan, Julie (1 January 2009). Real-time PCR: Current Technology and Applications (1st ed.). Horizon Scientific Press. pp. 156–157. ISBN 978-1904455394. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  28. El-Sagheer, Afaf H. (12 December 2011). "Click Nucleic Acid Ligation: Applications in Biology and Nanotechnology". Accounts of Chemical Research. 45 (8): 1258–1267. doi:10.1021/ar200321n. PMC 3423825. PMID 22439702.
  29. "Tom Brown : Google Scholar". Google Scholar. Retrieved 19 February 2020.
  30. "Josef Loschmidt Award Winners". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  31. "Tom Brown:Royal Society". Royal Society. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  32. "Molecular Frontiers Symposium 2008". Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. A*STAR. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  33. "Nobel Workshop: Molecules in Materials Research". Chalmers University of Technology. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  34. "Extending the Boundaries of Nucleic Acid Chemistry". Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Picsearch. 6 May 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  35. "MPLS Impact Awards 2015/16". University of Oxford. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  36. "Bioscience impact and innovation competition winners announced Bioscience impact and innovation competition winners announced". BBSRC. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  37. "Company Overview of Eurogentec Ltd". Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  38. "Eurogentec has acquired Oswel Research Products Ltd". Eurogentec. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  39. "Company Overview of Primerdesign Ltd". Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  40. Bunkall, Alistair (4 May 2009). "UK Firm Creates Rapid Swine Flu Test Kit". Sky News. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  41. "First Swine Flu DNA Test Produced". Science Daily. 10 May 2009. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  42. "Healthcare Company Novacyt Launches New Coronavirus Test". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  43. "Novacyt shares jump 32% on launch of coronavirus test". CNBC. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  44. "Chandlers Ford company Primerdesign launch novel coronavirus test". Southern Daily Echo. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  45. "Novacyt in prime position with coronavirus test". The Times. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
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