John Wilfred Jenkinson (1871–1915) was a pioneer in the field of comparative

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 (biology), regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and di ...

(the forerunner of

evolutionary developmental biology Evolutionary developmental biology, informally known as evo-devo, is a field of biological research that compares the developmental biology, developmental processes of different organisms to infer how developmental processes evolution, evolved. ...

) and one of the first to introduce experimental

embryology Embryology (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, ''-logy, -logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the Prenatal development (biology), prenatal development of gametes (sex ...

to the UK at the start of the 20th century. He originally studied Classics as an undergraduate student at Oxford, before switching his attention to Zoology under the guidance of W. F. R. Weldon at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. He also travelled to

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

in the Netherlands, to work with

Ambrosius Hubrecht Ambrosius Arnold Willem Hubrecht (2 March 1853, in Rotterdam – 21 March 1915, in Utrecht) was a Dutch zoologist. Among his prominent contributions was the evolution of placental mammals. Hubrecht studied zoology at Utrecht University with Hart ...

, and was exposed to new methods and approaches in embryology. In 1905, he was appointed the first lecturer in Embryology 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 ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, and in 1909 published the first English textbook on experimental embryology in which he summarized recent work in the emerging scientific discipline and criticized neo-vitalist theories of

Hans Driesch Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch (28 October 1867 – 17 April 1941) was a German biologist and philosopher from Bad Kreuznach. He is most noted for his early experimental work in embryology and for his neo-vitalist philosophy of entelechy. He has also ...

. At the outbreak of war in 1914, Jenkinson joined the Oxford Volunteer Training Corps. In January 1915 he was assigned to the 12th Battalion of the

Worcestershire Regiment The Worcestershire Regiment was a line infantry regiment in the British Army, formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot and the 36th (Herefordshire) Regiment of Foot. The regiment ...

and was soon promoted to the rank of captain.Marett, R.R. (1917) Biographical note. In Jenkinson, J.W. Three Lectures on Experimental Emrbyology. Oxford: Clarendon Press Jenkinson left England with his regiment in May, posted to the Dardanelles in Turkey. On 4 June 1915, just days after arriving on the Gallipoli peninsula, Jenkinson was killed. After Jenkinson's death at

Gallipoli The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...

in June 1915, the University of Oxford established the John Wilfred Jenkinson Lectureship in his memory. The original statutes required the lecturer or lecturers, appointed annually, to deliver “one or more lectures or lecture demonstrations on comparative or experimental embryology”.Statutes and Regulations of the University of Oxford http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/statutes/354-051a.shtml Each year, a Board of Electors selects one or two Jenkinson Lecturers who are invited to Oxford to present a lecture in the broad area of developmental biology. The list of Jenkinson Lecturers includes many distinguished names, including

Nobel Laureates The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

(marked with *).

Holders of the J. W. Jenkinson Lectureship

* 1961 Michail Fischberg * 1962 P. H. Tuft * 1963 Wolfgang Beerman * 1964 Jean Brachet * 1965 Rupert E. Billingham, * 1966 Jan Erik Edstrom * 1966 Alberto Monroy * 1967 *

Bob Edwards Robert Alan Edwards (May 16, 1947 – February 10, 2024) was an American broadcast journalist who was a Peabody Award-winning member of the National Radio Hall of Fame. He hosted both of National Public Radio's flagship news programs, the after ...

* 1968 Georg Klein * 1969 R. M. Gaze * 1969 H. Chantrenne * 1970 *

Sydney Brenner Sydney Brenner (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to wo ...

* 1970 Niels Kaj Jerne * 1971 Ernst Hadorn * 1971 J. M. Mitchison * 1972

Anne McLaren Dame Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren, (26 April 1927 – 7 July 2007) was a British scientist who was a leading figure in developmental biology. She paved the way for women in science and her work helped lead to human in vitro fertilisation ...

* 1972 G. Gerisch * 1973

Susumu Ohno was a Japanese-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and seminal researcher in the field of molecular evolution. Biography Susumu Ohno was born to Japanese parents in Keijō, Chōsen (present-day Seoul, South Korea), Empire of ...

* 1974 Ruggero Ceppellini * 1975 Andrzej Tarkowski * 1976 No formal lecture was held * 1977 Nils R. Ringertz * 1978 Martin Luscher * 1978 Armin C. Braun * 1980 Pasko Rakic * 1980 Walter Fiers * 1980

Nicole Le Douarin Nicole Marthe Le Douarin (born 20 August 1930) is a developmental biologist known for her studies of chimeras, which have led to critical insights regarding higher animal nervous and immune systems. Le Douarin invented an embryo manipulation ...

* 1981 Werner Reichardt * 1981

Antonio Garcia-Bellido Antonio García-Bellido y García de Diego ForMemRS (born 30 April 1936 in Madrid) is a Spanish developmental biologist. His ideas and new approaches to the problem of development have been followed and pursued by many researchers worldwide. He ...

* 1982 Lionel Jaffe * 1982 Maurice Sussmann * 1983 Stanley M. Crain * 1984

Rudolf Jaenisch Rudolf Jaenisch (born on April 22, 1942) is a professor of biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered. Jaenisc ...

* 1984 * Robert G. Edwards * 1985 G. S. Dawes * 1985 *

François Jacob François Jacob (; 17 June 1920 – 19 April 2013) was a French biologist who, together with Jacques Monod, originated the idea that control of enzyme levels in all cells occurs through regulation of transcription. He shared the 1965 Nobel ...

* 1985 Hans G. Schweiger * 1986 W. Maxwell Cowan * 1986

Marc Kirschner Marc Wallace Kirschner (born February 28, 1945) is an American cell biologist and biochemist and the founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is known for major discoveries in cell and developmental biolog ...

* 1986 Peter A. Lawrence * 1987 *

Gerald Edelman Gerald Maurice Edelman (; July 1, 1929 – May 17, 2014) was an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system. Edelman's Nobel Prize-winning research conc ...

* 1988 Corey Goodman * 1989 Josef Schell * 1989 *

John Gurdon Sir John Bertrand Gurdon (born 2 October 1933) is a British developmental biologist, best known for his pioneering research in nuclear transplantation and cloning. Awarded the Lasker Award in 2009, in 2012, he and Shinya Yamanaka were joint ...

* 1989 Webster K. Cavenee * 1990

Kai Simons Kai Simons is a Finnish professor of biochemistry and cell biology and physician, living and working in Germany. He introduced the concept of lipid rafts, and coined the term ''trans-Golgi network''. He is the co-founder and co-organizer of the ...

* 1991 Carla Shatz * 1991

Harold Weintraub Harold M. "Hal" Weintraub was an American scientist who lived from 1945 until his death in 1995 from an aggressive brain tumor. Only 49 years old, Weintraub left behind a legacy of research. Early life and education Born on June 2, 1945, in ...

* 1992 Manfred Schartl * 1992 Noriyuki Satoh * 1992 Bruce Cattanach * 1993 Chuck B. Kimmell * 1993 Andrew Lumsden * 1994

Peter Gruss Peter Gruss (born 28 June 1949) is a German developmental biologist, president of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, and the former president of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (having been elected for the term from 2002 to 2008 and re ...

* 1995

Brigid Hogan Brigid L. M. Hogan FRS is a British developmental biologist noted for her contributions to mammalian development, stem cell research and transgenic technology and techniques. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at D ...

* 1996 Ray Guillery * 1996 Susan K McConnell * 1997 James C Smith * 1997 Cliff Tabin * 1997 *

Tim Hunt Sir Richard Timothy Hunt (born 19 February 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular physiologist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for their discoveries of protein molecu ...

* 1998 Peter J. Bryant * 1999 Davor Solter * 1999 Françoise Dieterlan-Lievre * 2000 Peter Holland * 2000 Max Bear * 2000 Eduardo Boncinelli * 2001

Marc Tessier-Lavigne Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne (born December 18, 1959) is a Canadian-American neuroscientist. He served as the 11th president of Stanford University from 2016 to 2023 and the 10th president of Rockefeller University in New York City from 2011 to ...

* 2002 *

Roger Tsien Roger Yonchien Tsien (Chinese: 錢永健'';'' February 1, 1952 – August 24, 2016) was an American biochemist. He was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chem ...

* 2002

Enrico Coen Enrico Sandro Coen (born 29 September 1957) is a British biologist who studies the mechanisms used by plants to create complex and varied flower structures. Coen's research has aimed to define the developmental rules that govern flower and lea ...

* 2003

Mike Bate Christopher Michael Bate, FRS (born 21 December 1943) is an Emeritus Professor of developmental biology at the Department of Zoology and fellow at King's College, Cambridge. The son of John Gordon Bate, M.B. Ch.B., an R.A.F. doctor, of Holmb ...

* 2004

Cheryll Tickle Cheryll Anne Tickle (born 18 January 1945) is a British scientist, known for her work in developmental biology and specifically for her research into the process by which vertebrate limbs develop ''ab ovo''. She is an emeritus professor at the U ...

* 2004 Rudy Raff * 2005

Gerd Jürgens Gerd Jürgens (also spelt Juergens) (born 1949) is a plant developmental biologist and emeritus Director of the Cell Biology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology and Head of the Center for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP) ...

* 2005 David Weisblat * 2006 Stephen Cohen * 2006 Michael Akam * 2007 Shigeru Kuratani * 2007

Janet Rossant Janet Rossant, (born 13 July 1950) is a developmental biologist well known for her contributions to the understanding of the role of genes in embryo development. She is a leader in developmental biology. Her current research interests focus on ...

* 2008 Richard Gardner * 2008

Didier Stainier Didier Stainier (born 1963) is a Belgian/American developmental geneticist who is currently a director at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, Germany. Scientific career Didier Stainier studied biology in Wales (U ...

* 2009 Sean B. Carroll * 2009

Wendy Bickmore Wendy Anne Bickmore (born 28 July 1961) is a British genome biologist known for her research on the organisation of genomic material in cells. Early life and education Bickmore was born at Shoreham-by-Sea on 28 July 1961 to Beryl and Keith Bi ...

* 2010 Nick Hastie * 2010 Paul Sternberg * 2010 David Kingsley * 2011 Jurgen Knoblich * 2012

Caroline Dean Dame Caroline Dean (born 2 April 1957) is a British plant scientist working at the John Innes Centre. She is focused on understanding the molecular controls used by plants to seasonally judge when to flower. She is specifically interested in ...

* 2012

Hopi Hoekstra Danielle "Hopi" Elisabeth Hoekstra (born 1972) is an evolutionary biologist working at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her lab uses natural populations of rodents to s ...

* 2013 Olivier Pourquie * 2013 Nipam Patel * 2014

Gero Miesenböck Gero Andreas Miesenböck (born 15 July 1965) is an Austrian scientist. He is currently Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB) at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen C ...

* 2014 Alex Schier *2015 *

*2016

Detlef Weigel Detlef Weigel (born 1961 in Lower Saxony, Germany) is a German American scientist working at the interface of developmental and evolutionary biology. Education Weigel was an undergraduate in biology and chemistry at the universities of Bielefel ...

*2016

Linda Partridge Dame Linda Partridge (born 18 March 1950) is a British geneticist, who studies the biology and genetics of ageing (biogerontology) and age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Partridge is currently Weldon Profe ...

*2017 *

Jennifer Doudna Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has pioneered work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, wit ...

* 2018

Liqun Luo Liqun Luo (; born January 1966) is a neuroscientist in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, where he is the Ann and Bill Swindells Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical I ...

*2018 Elizabeth Robertson * 2019

Andrea Brand Andrea Hilary Brand (born March 9, 1959) is the Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Biology and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. She heads a lab investigating nervous system development at the Gurdon Institute and the Department of Physiolog ...

* 2019 *

Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He is a professor and the director emeritus of Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application, Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the U ...

* 2022 Nancy Papalopulu * 2023 Denis Duboule * 202
Ben Lehner
* 2024 Elly Tanak

* 2025 Irene Miguel-Aliag

Forthcoming * 2025 James Sharp

Forthcoming * 2026 Cassandra Extavou

Forthcoming

Lectureship management

The lecturers are elected by an electoral board consisting of: the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford; the rector of Exeter College, Oxford; the Regius Professor of Medicine; the Linacre Professor of Zoology; the Waynflete Professor of Physiology; Dr. Lee's Professor of Anatomy; and a member of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Board elected by that board.

References

{{reflist 1915 establishments in England

Jenkinson Jenkinson is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Anthony Jenkinson (1529–1610/1611), English explorer * Jenkinson Baronets, holders of the two British baronetcies for people with the surname Jenkinson **Charles Jenkinson, 1st Ea ...

Embryology Developmental biology Lists of biologists Recurring events established in 1915