Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Sir John Sulston
Oration given on 11 July 2002
Chancellor, The Senate has resolved that the degree of Doctor
of the University be conferred upon Sir John Sulston.
The first molecular basis of a human disease was uncovered just over 40 years
ago, at the Medical Research Council Unit for Molecular Biology in Cambridge.
Biologists there used protein chemistry to show that a change in an amino acid
causes sickle cell anaemia. The 1970’s saw the development of more sophisticated
methods for investigating genetic defects such as sequencing, cloning and DNA
technology. In the last fifteen to twenty years, these techniques have been used
to discover the genetic basis of hundreds of diseases. Early on, it was realised
that the task would be easier if there were a map on which researchers could
find specific genes. The idea was to make a map with signposts - marker
sequences at intervals - and determine long runs of DNA sequence later on. In
1990, the Human Genome Project was publicly launched as a consortium of nations,
using public funds, who would sequence the human genome and produce a catalogue
of all human genes. A working draft of the genome was celebrated on 26 June
2000. One-third of the sequence was produced at the Sanger Centre in Cambridge,
under the leadership of Sir John Sulston.
John Sulston fell into science after what he admits was a fairly
undistinguished undergraduate degree at Cambridge between 1960-63. "I never
regarded myself, and I'm not an especially bright person, more of an artisan
than an intellectual". He never meant to do a PhD. After graduating he signed up
to go abroad with Voluntary Service Overseas. Fortunately for us, this scheme
fell through so he wandered along to the chemistry laboratories and asked about
becoming a research student. To quote Sir John from an article in the Guardian
"And they said, 'Oh fine, come along in' - this was the 60s. That was
tremendous. What I actually liked was being in the lab and playing with the
toys. I just played and played and played."
John Sulston's scientific awakening came in California where he was awarded a
postdoctoral scholarship at the Salk Institute. In 1969, he returned to
Cambridge and its world-famous molecular biology laboratory. In California, he
had worked on nucleic acids - how genetic inheritance might get going - but
techniques were primitive. At Cambridge he made his scientific name with a
detailed study of the tiny nematode worm. As part of the research project
examining the worm's cell lineage he shut himself in a small room and watched
worms hatch. Again to quote Sir John "No one thought it was possible. Various
people had looked at taking photographs, cutting and staining. But the
resolution was not good enough. I twigged I could do it just by sitting and
looking, so I did."
In true British fashion, he describes his work as "not the top stuff, not the
breakthrough that leads to Nobel prizes, but solid middle-of-the-road science".
Later, with his US collaborator, they moved on to map the worms' genes.
In the early 1990's the Wellcome Trust recognised that sequencing the human
genome was a possibility. They wanted to establish a world-class
genome-sequencing centre in the UK, using the high-throughput approach that the
worm project had pioneered. In 1992 they founded the Sanger Centre jointly with
the MRC, and invited John Sulston to be its first Director. It meant, among
other things, that he could get the worm finished, and in December 1998 he and
his colleagues published the complete sequence, the first of a multicellular
organism.
"I was not personally going for the human genome," he says. "It was more a
question of wanting to get genomics going, and then more specifically to study
the genome of the worm. But I also believed very strongly that the UK should
become involved in large-scale genomics, and so when the opportunity came to
head the Sanger Centre and help to make a serious attempt on the human, I was
ready for it."
The entry, in 1998, of a private competitor, Celera Genomics headed by Craig
Venter, into the genome sequencing arena catapulted John Sulston unexpectedly
into the limelight. Having previously had very little public recognition, he
found himself regularly speaking up for the project on Newsnight and the Today
programme, while the Observer placed him among the UK’s 100 most powerful
people. Venter accused project scientists of slackness and inefficiency. He said
he would complete the project within three years, as opposed to the scheduled
six years. US scientists, as government officials, were not allowed to fight
back and criticise US industry. So John Sulston, as leader of the British
project, became the reluctant champion of science for the people. Celera planned
to maximise its profits by selling data and patenting such genes as it could
whilst John Sulston and his colleagues wanted to ensure that our genetic
blueprint was freely available.
The press were keen to highlight the differences between the two men.
Venter's lavish lifestyle included penthouse flats, gold Rolex watches and
Hollywood-style interviews. In contrast, the bearded Sulston was a model of
quiet British understatement. His wild beard and hair give him the air of being
an ex-hippy professor. His lifestyle was one of motorbike travel, until a crash
nearly killed him, and social intercourse in the pubs of Cambridgeshire. Indeed,
such has been his love of the latter that he was once accused of staffing his
research centre with a disproportionately high number of barmaids. Sir John
claims he merely prefers practical competence to paper qualifications.
Venter quickly became known as the 'Darth' Venter of genetics, which
presumably makes John Sulston its Obi-wan Kenobi. In the end, compromise was
reached - with Venter and Celera on one side, and John Sulston and his US
counterparts on the other, publishing their first draft of the human genome just
over two years ago. It was hailed as a triumph for both state science and
private enterprise. Yet, as he points out, Venter's version was largely made up
using the results of the public project. He merely topped these up with some
data of his own and then sold on the package to others. The public version was,
of course, free with unrestricted access.
The publication of the detailed sequencing and mapping papers of the Human
Genome Project shows that the "book of humankind" is even more wonderful, and
mysterious, than previously thought. The papers reveal that the human genome
holds an extraordinary treasure trove of information about human development,
physiology, medicine and evolution.
His personal account of the Human Genome Project, its science, policy and
ethics is well told in his book The Common Thread, co-authored with Georgina
Ferry.
In 1986 he was elected to the Royal Society and in the 2001 New Year's
Honours List he was knighted. More recently he was appointed a member of the
Human Genetics Commission. Over the Christmas period you may well have seen Sir
John on television presenting the annual Royal Institution Christmas lectures.
The human genome has been the focus of biological research for the last
decade and will continue to be the centre of attention for many years to come.
The work stretches current technology to its limits. Genome analysis therefore
represents the frontier of molecular biology, territory that was inaccessible
just a few years ago and which still demands novel approaches and a lot of sheer
hard work
Chancellor, I present to you Sir John Sulston.
Orator: Professor Ian Colbeck