Sir Edwin Mellor Southern (born 7 June 1938) is an English

Lasker Award In 1945 Albert Lasker and Mary Woodard Lasker created the Lasker Awards. Every year since then the award has been given to the living person considered to have made the greatest contribution to medical science or who has demonstrated public ser ...

-winning

molecular biologist Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

Professor of Biochemistry at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and a fellow of

Trinity College, Oxford Trinity College (full name: The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope (Knight)) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in E ...

. He is most widely known for the invention of the

Southern blot Southern blot is a method used for detection and quantification of a specific DNA sequence in DNA samples. This method is used in molecular biology. Briefly, purified DNA from a biological sample (such as blood or tissue) is digested with res ...

, published in 1975 and now a common laboratory procedure.

Early life and education

Southern was born in

Burnley, Lancashire Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, Lancashire, Preston, at th ...

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 The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

(BSc Hons., 1958). He continued as a graduate student (then Demonstrator, 1963) in the Department of Chemistry,

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

, where he was awarded his PhD in 1962.

Career and research

Southern is also the founder and chairman of Oxford Gene Technology. He is also the founder (in 2000) 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, and the Edina Trust, which was founded to promote science in schools. These charities are financed using royalty income from licensing

microarray A microarray is a multiplex (assay), multiplex lab-on-a-chip. Its purpose is to simultaneously detect the expression of thousands of biological interactions. It is a two-dimensional array on a Substrate (materials science), solid substrate—usu ...

technology.

Southern blot

The

is used for

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

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,

western blot The western blot (sometimes called the protein immunoblot), or western blotting, is a widely used analytical technique in molecular biology and immunogenetics to detect specific proteins in a sample of tissue homogenate or extract. Besides detect ...

and eastern blot, related procedures for the analysis of

RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule that is essential for most biological functions, either by performing the function itself (non-coding RNA) or by forming a template for the production of proteins (messenger RNA). RNA and deoxyrib ...

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...

and

post-translational modification In molecular biology, post-translational modification (PTM) is the covalent process of changing proteins following protein biosynthesis. PTMs may involve enzymes or occur spontaneously. Proteins are created by ribosomes, which translation (biolog ...

of proteins, respectively, are all puns on Southern's name.

DNA microarray

Southern founded Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) in 1995, a company that developed

DNA microarray A DNA microarray (also commonly known as a DNA chip or biochip) is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface. Scientists use DNA microarrays to measure the expression levels of large numbers of genes simultaneously or t ...

technology. OGT won a 1999

patent infringement A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

lawsuit against

Affymetrix Affymetrix is now Applied Biosystems, a brand of DNA microarray products sold by Thermo Fisher Scientific that originated with an American biotechnology research and development and manufacturing company of the same name. The Santa Clara, Calif ...

based on his patent holdings in microarray technology.

Awards and honours

In 1990, Southern was one of the winners of the Gairdner Foundation International Award. In 1998 he was awarded the

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 are given for "the mo ...

of the

Royal Society of London 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, r ...

. He received the Association for Molecular Pathology Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics in 1999. He was made a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised Order of chivalry, orders of chivalry; it is a part of the Orders, decorations, and medals ...

in the June 2003 Birthday Honours for services to the development of

technologies. In 2005 he was awarded the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, jointly with Alec Jeffreys of the

University of Leicester The University of Leicester ( ) is a public university, public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, Univ ...

for his invention of the Southern blot. In 2005 he was also awarded the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Award for outstanding contributions to Biomolecular Technologies. In 2012, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His nomination for 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 ...

reads:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Southern, Edwin 1938 births People educated at Burnley Grammar School Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Living people British molecular biologists Knights Bachelor English biochemists Royal Medal winners Fellows of the Royal Society People from Burnley Whitley Professors of Biochemistry Recipients of the Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award Academics of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of the University of Manchester