Bryan Clarke
| Bryan Clarke | |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 June 1932 |
| Died | 27 February 2014 (aged 81) |
| Residence | Nottingham, England |
| Citizenship | British |
| Institutions | University of Nottingham University of Edinburgh |
| Alma mater | Magdalen College Oxford University |
| Thesis | (1961) |
| Notable awards |
Fellow of the Royal Society Linnean Medal (2003) Darwin-Wallace Medal (2008) Darwin Medal (2010) |
Professor Bryan Campbell Clarke FRS, (24 June 1932 – 27 February 2014) was a British geneticist, latterly professor emeritus of genetics at the University of Nottingham. Clarke is particularly noted for his work on apostatic selection (which is a term he coined in 1962) and other forms of frequency-dependent selection, and work on polymorphism in snails, much of it done during the 1960s. Later, he studied molecular evolution. He made the case for natural selection as an important factor in the maintenance of molecular variation, and in driving evolutionary changes in molecules through time. In doing so, he questioned the over-riding importance of random genetic drift advocated by King, Jukes, and Kimura. With Professor James J Murray Jnr (University of Virginia), he carried out an extensive series of studies on speciation in land snails of the genus Partula inhabiting the volcanic islands of the Eastern Pacific. These studies helped illuminate the genetic changes that take place during the origin of species.
Clarke was educated at Magdalen College Oxford, receiving a BA in 1956 and DPhil in 1961. He was appointed as Assistant Lecturer at Edinburgh University in 1959 and had been promoted to Reader by the time he left in 1971. In 1971 he became Foundation Professor at the new Department of Genetics at the University of Nottingham becoming Emeritus Professor in 1997. During this period he spent two spells (1971–76, 1981–93) as Head of Department.
Clarke mentored many scientists in evolutionary genetics, supervising more than thirty research students, many of which have gone on to successful research careers themselves. He was a co-founder of the Population Genetics Group ("PopGroup") a scientific meeting for evolutionary and population genetics held annually in the UK since the 1960s.
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