Sydney Brenner

Sydney Brenner
Esther Lederberg, Gunther Stent, Sydney Brenner and Joshua Lederberg pictured in 1965
Born	(1927-01-13) 13 January 1927 (age 90) Germiston, Gauteng, South Africa
Nationality	South African
Fields	Biology
Institutions	University of the Witwatersrand University of Cambridge University of California, Berkeley Molecular Sciences Institute Scripps Research Institute Salk Institute for Biological Studies Howard Hughes Medical Institute Laboratory of Molecular Biology Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
Alma mater	University of the Witwatersrand (MSc, MBBCh) University of Oxford (DPhil)
Thesis	The physical chemistry of cell processes: a study of bacteriophage resistance in Escherichia coli, strain B (1954)
Doctoral advisor	Cyril Hinshelwood
Doctoral students	Gerald M. Rubin John G. White
Known for	Genetics of Caenorhabditis elegans Nobel prize
Influences	Fred Sanger
Notable awards	EMBO Membership (1964) FRS (1965) William Bate Hardy Prize (1969) Albert Lasker Medical Research Award (1971) Royal Medal (1974) Gairdner Foundation International Award (1978) Krebs Medal (1980) Rosenstiel Award (1986) Harvey Prize (1987) Genetics Society of America Medal (1987) Kyoto Prize (1990) Copley Medal (1991) Gairdner Foundation International Award (1991) King Faisal International Prize in Medicine (1992) Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine (2002) Dan David Prize (2002)
Spouse	May Brenner (née Covitz) (m. 1952–2010) (her death)
Children	3
Website salk.edu/faculty/brenner.html hhmi.org/scientists/sydney-brenner

Sydney Brenner CH FRS FMedSci (born 13 January 1927) is a South African biologist and a 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, shared with Bob Horvitz and John Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology while working in the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology, and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, U.S..

Brenner was born in the town of Germiston, Gauteng, South Africa. His parents, Lena (née Blecher) and Morris Brenner, were Jewish immigrants. His father, a cobbler, came to South Africa from Lithuania in 1910, and his mother from Riga, Latvia, in 1922. He has one sibling, a sister, Phyllis.