Sydney Brenner (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize ...

. In 2002, he shared the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accordi ...

with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir

John E. Sulston Sir John Edward Sulston (27 March 1942 – 6 March 2018) was a British biologist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the cell lineage and genome of the worm ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' in 2002 with ...

. Brenner made significant contributions to work on the

genetic code The genetic code is the set of rules used by living cells to translate information encoded within genetic material ( DNA or RNA sequences of nucleotide triplets, or codons) into proteins. Translation is accomplished by the ribosome, which links ...

, and other areas of molecular biology while working in the Medical Research Council (MRC)

Laboratory of Molecular Biology The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) is a research institute in Cambridge, England, involved in the revolution in molecular biology which occurred in the 1950–60s. Since then it has remained a major medical r ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, England. He established the roundworm ''

Caenorhabditis elegans ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''rhabditis'' (r ...

'' as a

model organism A model organism (often shortened to model) is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the model organism will provide insight into the workin ...

for the investigation of

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and differentiation of st ...

, and founded the

Molecular Sciences Institute The Molecular Sciences Institute (MSI), now located in Milpitas, California was founded in Berkeley, California by Sydney Brenner in 1996. Its mission was to operate as an independent non-profit research laboratory that combined genomic experiment ...

in Berkeley,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, United States.''The Science Times Book of the Brain'' 1998. Edited by Nicholas Wade. The Lyons Press

Horace Freeland Judson Horace Freeland Judson (April 21, 1931 – May 6, 2011) was a journalist and later with more prominence a historian of molecular biology including authoring several books, including ''The Eighth Day of Creation'', a history of molecular biology, ...

''The Eighth Day of Creation'' (1979), pp. 10–11 ''Makers of the Revolution in Biology''; Penguin Books 1995, first published by Jonathan Cape, 1977; ."Sydney Brenner: A Biography" by Errol Friedberg, pub.

CSHL Press Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press was founded in 1933 to aid in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's purpose of furthering the advance and spread of scientific knowledge. CSHL Press publishes monographs, technical manuals, handbooks, review volumes ...

October 2010, .

Education and early life

Brenner was born in the town of

Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a small city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions a ...

in the then Transvaal (today in

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

), South Africa, on 13 January 1927. His parents, Leah (née Blecher) and Morris Brenner, were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

s. His father, a cobbler, came to South Africa from

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

in 1910, and his mother from

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the ...

, Latvia, in 1922. He had one sister, Phyllis. He was educated at Germiston High School and the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

. Having joined university at the age of 15, it was noted during his second year that he would be too young to qualify for the practice of medicine at the conclusion of his six-year medical course, and he was therefore allowed to complete a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

Anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having i ...

and

Physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemic ...

. He stayed on for two more years doing an

Honours degree Honours degree has various meanings in the context of different degrees and education systems. Most commonly it refers to a variant of the undergraduate bachelor's degree containing a larger volume of material or a higher standard of study, or ...

and then an MSc degree, supporting himself by working part-time as a laboratory technician. During this time he was taught by

Joel Mandelstam Joel Mandelstam FRS (13 November 1919 – 20 December 2008) was a British microbiologist, a Professor, at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. He was a pioneer in using bacteria to study fundamental biological p ...

Raymond Dart Raymond Arthur Dart (4 February 1893 – 22 November 1988) was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of ''Australopithecus africanus'', an extinct hom ...

and

Robert Broom Robert Broom FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. From 1903 to 1910, he ...

. His master thesis was in the field of

cytogenetics Cytogenetics is essentially a branch of genetics, but is also a part of cell biology/cytology (a subdivision of human anatomy), that is concerned with how the chromosomes relate to cell behaviour, particularly to their behaviour during mitosis an ...

. In 1951 he received the

Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United K ...

(MBBCh) degree. Brenner received an

1851 Exhibition Scholarship The 1851 Research Fellowship is a scheme conducted by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 to annually award a three-year research scholarship to approximately eight "young scientists or engineers of exceptional promise". The fellowshi ...

from the

Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 is an institution founded in 1850 to administer the international exhibition of 1851, officially called the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations. The Great Exhibition was held ...

which enabled him to complete a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

as a postgraduate student of

Exeter College, Oxford (Let Exeter Flourish) , old_names = ''Stapeldon Hall'' , named_for = Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter , established = , sister_college = Emmanuel College, Cambridge , rector = Sir Richard Trainor ...

, supervised by Cyril Hinshelwood.

Career and research

Following his DPhil, Brenner did

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

. He spent the next 20 years at the

in Cambridge. There, during the 1960s, he contributed to molecular biology, then an emerging field. In 1976 he joined the Salk Institute in

. Together with

Jack Dunitz Jack David Dunitz FRS (29 March 1923 – 12 September 2021) was a British chemist and widely known chemical crystallographer. He was Professor of Chemical Crystallography at the ETH Zurich from 1957 until his official retirement in 1990. He h ...

Dorothy Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot; 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a Nobel Prize-winning British chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential fo ...

, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, he was one of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by

Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical stru ...

and

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick a ...

; at the time he and the other scientists were working at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner, who subsequently worked with Crick in the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and the newly opened Medical Research Council (MRC)

(LMB). According to Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once

announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA. Brenner made several seminal contributions to the emerging field of

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and phys ...

in the 1960s (see Phage group). The first was to prove that all overlapping genetic coding sequences were impossible. This insight separated the coding function from structural constraints as proposed in a clever code by

George Gamow George Gamow (March 4, 1904 – August 19, 1968), born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov ( uk, Георгій Антонович Гамов, russian: Георгий Антонович Гамов), was a Russian-born Soviet and American polymath, theoret ...

. This led Francis Crick to propose the concept of a hypothetical molecule (later identified as

transfer RNA Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes), that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino ...

or tRNA) that transfer the genetic information from RNA to proteins. Brenner gave the name " adaptor hypothesis" in 1955. The physical separation between the

anticodon Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes), that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino ...

and the amino acid on a tRNA is the basis for the unidirectional flow of information in coded biological systems. This is commonly known as the

central dogma of molecular biology The central dogma of molecular biology is an explanation of the flow of genetic information within a biological system. It is often stated as "DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes protein", although this is not its original meaning. It was first stated by ...

, i.e. information flows from nucleic acid to protein and never from protein to nucleic acid. Following this adaptor insight, Brenner conceived of the concept of

messenger RNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of synthesizing a protein. mRNA is created during the ...

during an April 1960 conversation with Crick and François Jacob, and together with Jacob and

Matthew Meselson Matthew Stanley Meselson (born May 24, 1930) is a geneticist and molecular biologist currently at Harvard University, known for his demonstration, with Franklin Stahl, of semi-conservative DNA replication. After completing his Ph.D. under Li ...

went on to prove its existence later that summer. Then, with Crick, Leslie Barnett, and Richard J. Watts-Tobin, Brenner genetically demonstrated the triplet nature of the code of

protein translation In molecular biology and genetics, translation is the process in which ribosomes in the cytoplasm or endoplasmic reticulum synthesize proteins after the process of transcription of DNA to RNA in the cell's nucleus. The entire process ...

through the Crick, Brenner, Barnett, Watts-Tobin et al. experiment of 1961, which discovered

frameshift mutation A frameshift mutation (also called a framing error or a reading frame shift) is a genetic mutation caused by indels ( insertions or deletions) of a number of nucleotides in a DNA sequence that is not divisible by three. Due to the triplet nature ...

s. Brenner collaborating with Sarabhai, Stretton and Bolle in 1964, using amber mutants defective in the bacteriophage T4D major head protein, showed that the nucleotide sequence of the

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...

is co-linear with the amino acid sequence of the encoded polypeptide chain. Together with the decoding work of Marshall Warren Nirenberg and others, the discovery of the triplet nature of the

was critical to deciphering the code. Barnett helped set up Sydney Brenner's laboratory in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

, many years later. EMLederberg GStent SBrenner JLederberg 1965 wiki

Brenner, with George Pieczenik, created the first computer matrix analysis of nucleic acids using TRAC, which Brenner continued to use. Crick, Brenner, Klug and Pieczenik returned to their early work on deciphering the genetic code with a pioneering paper on the origin of protein synthesis, where constraints on mRNA and tRNA co-evolved allowing for a five-base interaction with a flip of the anticodon loop, and thereby creating a triplet code translating system without requiring a

ribosome Ribosomes ( ) are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis (mRNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to fo ...

. This model requires a partially overlapping code. The published scientific paper is extremely rare in that its collaborators include three authors who independently became Nobel laureates.Crick won a Nobel prize in 1962, Brenner in 2002, and Klug in 1982. However, this is not the only case. See Barton (1969), Prelog (1975) and Woodward (1965) all became Nobel winners. Brenner then focused on establishing a free-living roundworm ''

'' as a

for the investigation of animal development including

neural development The development of the nervous system, or neural development (neurodevelopment), refers to the processes that generate, shape, and reshape the nervous system of animals, from the earliest stages of embryonic development to adulthood. The fiel ...

. He chose this 1-millimeter-long soil roundworm mainly because it is simple, is easy to grow in bulk populations, and turned out to be quite convenient for genetic analysis. One of the key methods for identifying important function genes was the screen for roundworms that had some functional defect, such as being ''uncoordinated'', leading to the identification of new sets of proteins, such as the set of

UNC UNC is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to: Education * University of Northern California (disambiguation), which may refer to: ** University of Northern California (Santa Rosa), in Petaluma, California, United States ** University of No ...

proteins. For this work, he shared the 2002

with H. Robert Horvitz and

John Sulston Sir John Edward Sulston (27 March 1942 – 6 March 2018) was a British biologist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the cell lineage and genome of the worm ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' in 2002 with ...

. The title of his Nobel lecture in December 2002, "Nature's Gift to Science", is a homage to this

nematode The nematodes ( or grc-gre, Νηματώδη; la, Nematoda) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes), with plant- parasitic nematodes also known as eelworms. They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a bro ...

; in it, he considered that having chosen the right organism turned out to be as important as having addressed the right problems to work on. In fact, the ''C. elegans'' community has grown rapidly in recent decades with researchers working on a wide spectrum of problems. Brenner founded the

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

in 1996. he was associated with the Salk Institute, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, the Singapore Biomedical Research Council, the

Janelia Farm Research Campus Janelia Research Campus is a scientific research campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that opened in October 2006. The campus is located in Loudoun County, Virginia, near the town of Ashburn. It is known for its scientific research and ...

, and the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fi ...

. In August 2005, Brenner was appointed president of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. He was also on the Board of Scientific Governors at

The Scripps Research Institute Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is a nonprofit American medical research facility that focuses on research and education in the biomedical sciences. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the instit ...

, as well as being Professor of Genetics there. A scientific biography of Brenner was written by Errol Friedberg in the US, for publication by

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, and quantitative biology. It is one of 68 institutions supported by the Cancer Centers ...

Press in 2010. Known for his penetrating scientific insight and acerbic wit, Brenner, for many years, authored a regular column ("Loose Ends") in the journal ''

Current Biology ''Current Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The journal includes research arti ...

''. This column was so popular that "Loose ends from Current Biology", a compilation, was published by Current Biology Ltd. and became a collectors' item. Brenner wrote "''A Life in Science''", a paperback published by

BioMed Central BioMed Central (BMC) is a United Kingdom-based, for-profit scientific open access publisher that produces over 250 scientific journals. All its journals are published online only. BioMed Central describes itself as the first and largest open ...

. He is also noted for his generosity with ideas and the great number of students and colleagues his ideas have stimulated. In 2017, Brenner co-organized a seminal lecture series in Singapore describing ten logarithmic scales of time from the

Big Bang The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...

to the present, spanning the appearance of multicellular life forms, the evolution of humans, and the emergence of language, culture and technology. Prominent scientists and thinkers, including W. Brian Arthur,

Svante Pääbo Svante Pääbo (; born 20 April 1955) is a Swedish geneticist who specialises in the field of evolutionary genetics. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. In 1997, he became founding dire ...

, Helga Nowotny and

Jack Szostak Jack William Szostak (born November 9, 1952) is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent, Nobel Prize laureate, university professor at the University of Chicago, former Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Alexan ...

, spoke during the lecture series. In 2018, the lectures were adapted into a popular science book titled ''Sydney Brenner's 10-on-10: The Chronicles of Evolution'', published by Wildtype Books. Brenner also gave four lectures on the history of molecular biology, its impact on neuroscience and the great scientific questions that lie ahead. The lectures were adapted into the book, ''In the Spirit of Science: Lectures by Sydney Brenner on DNA, Worms and Brains''.

American plan and European plan

The "American plan" and "European plan" were proposed by Sydney Brenner as competing models for the way brain cells determine their neural functions. According to the European plan (sometimes referred to as the British plan), the function of cells is determined by their genetic lineage. According to the American plan, a cell's function is determined by the function of its neighbours after

cell migration Cell migration is a central process in the development and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Tissue formation during embryonic development, wound healing and immune responses all require the orchestrated movement of cells in particular dir ...

. Further research has shown that most species follow some combination of these methods, albeit in varying degrees, to transfer information to new cells.

Awards and honours

Brenner received numerous awards and honours, including: *

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

since 1959. * Elected an EMBO Member in 1964. * Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) of London in 1965. * Elected member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1966. * William Bate Hardy Prize in 1969. * Albert Lasker Medical Research Award in 1971. *

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...

from the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1974. * Elected member of the United States

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 1977. * Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1978 and again in 1991. * Elected member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1979. * Krebs Medal in 1980. * Novartis Medal and Prize of the

Biochemical Society The Biochemical Society is a learned society in the United Kingdom in the field of biochemistry, including all the cellular and molecular biosciences. Structure It currently has around 7000 members, two-thirds in the UK. It is affiliated with t ...

in 1980. * Rosenstiel Award in 1986. * Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1986. *

Harvey Prize Harvey Prize is an annual Israeli award for breakthroughs in science and technology, as well as contributions to peace in the Middle East granted by the Technion in Haifa. History The prize is named for industrialist and inventor Leo Harvey. T ...

in 1987. * Genetics Society of America Medal in 1987. *

Kyoto Prize The is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences. It is given not only to those that are top representatives of their own respective fields, but to "those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, ...

in 1990. *

Copley Medal The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...

in 1991. * King Faisal International Prize in Medicine in 1992. * The Dendrobium Sydney Brenner named in 1998 on the occasion of his visit to Singapore's National Orchid Garden the prior year. *

Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accordi ...

in 2002. *

Dan David Prize The Dan David Prize is a major international award that recognizes and supports outstanding contributions to the study of history and other disciplines that shed light on the human past. It awards nine prizes of $300,000 each year to outstanding ...

in 2002. directed by Professor Gad Barzilai * March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology in 2002. * In recognition of his pioneering role in starting what is now a global research community that work on ''C. elegans'', another closely related nematode was given the scientific name ''

Caenorhabditis brenneri ''Caenorhabditis brenneri'' is a small nematode, closely related to the model organism ''Caenorhabditis elegans''. Its genome is being sequenced by Washington University in St. Louis Genome Sequencing Center. This species has previously been ref ...

''. * The National Science and Technology Medal by the

Agency for Science, Technology and Research The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore. The agency supports R&D that is aligned to areas of competitive advantage and national needs for Singapore ...

awarded Brenner in 2006 for his distinguished and strategic contributions to the development of Singapore's scientific capability and culture, particularly in the biomedical sciences sector. * In 2008, the University of the Witwatersrand named the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB) in his honour. *

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight f ...

in 2017. * In 2019, a newly discovered species of bobtail squid, '' Euprymna brenneri'', was named in his honour.

Personal life

Brenner was married to May Brenner (, subsequently Balkind) from December 1952 until her death in January 2010; their children include Belinda, Carla, Stefan, and his stepson Jonathan Balkind from his wife's first marriage to Marcus Balkind. He lived in

Ely, Cambridgeshire Ely ( ) is a cathedral city in the East Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England, about north-northeast of Cambridge and from London. Ely is built on a Kimmeridge Clay island which, at , is the highest land in the Fens. It wa ...

. He was an atheist. Brenner died on 5 April 2019, in Singapore, at the age of 92.

References

External links

Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 23 August 2007 (video)
* including the Nobel Lecture 8 December 2002 ''Nature's Gift to Science'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Brenner, Sydney 1927 births 2019 deaths Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine South African Nobel laureates South African emigrants to the United Kingdom Jewish biologists South African biologists South African geneticists Jewish geneticists History of genetics People from Germiston University of the Witwatersrand alumni Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford Fellows of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of Exeter College, Oxford Scripps Research faculty South African biotechnologists Caenorhabditis elegans Phage workers Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of the Royal Society Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Kyoto laureates in Advanced Technology Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Members of the French Academy of Sciences Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Recipients of the Copley Medal Royal Medal winners Jewish atheists Jewish scientists South African atheists South African Jews South African people of Latvian-Jewish descent South African people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent White South African people Honorary Citizens of Singapore Salk Institute for Biological Studies people Members of the American Philosophical Society Members of the National Academy of Medicine