Edwin Southern
| Sir Edwin Southern | |
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Sir Edwin in 2012
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| Born | Edwin Mellor Southern 7 June 1938 Burnley, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Molecular Biology |
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| Alma mater |
University of Manchester (BSc)
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| Thesis | Studies on synthetic and naturally occurring enzyme metabolites (1964) |
| Known for | Southern blot |
| Notable awards |
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Website www |
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Sir Edwin Mellor Southern, FRS (born 7 June 1938) is an English Lasker Award-winning molecular biologist, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. He is most widely known for the invention of the Southern blot, now a common laboratory procedure.
Southern was born in Burnley, Lancashire and educated at Burnley Grammar School. He has a brother named John Southern and a sister Kay Monie. He went on to read Chemistry at the University of Manchester (BSc Hons., 1958). He continued as a graduate student (then Demonstrator, 1963) in the Department of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, where he was awarded his PhD in 1962.
Southern is also the Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of Oxford Gene Technology. He is also the founder and chairman of a Scottish charity, The Kirkhouse Trust, which aims to promote education and research in the Natural Sciences, particularly the biological and medical sciences. In addition the Edina Trust was founded to promote science in schools. These charities are financed using royalty income from licensing microarray technology.
The Southern blot is used for DNA analysis and was routinely used for genetic fingerprinting and paternity testing prior to the development of microsatellite markers for this purpose. The procedure is also frequently used to determine the number of copies of a gene in the genome. The concepts of the Southern blot were used in the development and creation of the modern microarray slide, which is an extensively used experimental tool. The northern blot is a similar procedure for RNA, playing off the Southern name. The western blot, an important research tool in protein detection, is a further play on the Southern blot.
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