Professor Keith Gull (born 29 May 1948) is a

Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowships are research fellowships awarded to scientists who are recognised by the Wellcome Trust as having "international standing with an established track record in research at the highest level." Awards prov ...

and Professor of

Molecular microbiology Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. Though cells and other microsco ...

at the

Sir William Dunn School of Pathology The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology is a department within the University of Oxford. Its research programme includes the cellular and molecular biology of pathogens, the immune response, cancer and cardiovascular disease. It teaches undergr ...

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 ...

. He was the principal of

St Edmund Hall, Oxford St Edmund Hall (also known as The Hall and Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university" and was the las ...

from 1 October 2009 to 30 September 2018, succeeding

Michael Mingos David Michael Patrick Mingos (born 6 August 1944) is a British chemist and academic. He was Principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford from 1999 to 2009, and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Education Mingos attended the ...

Education

Gull was educated at Eston Grammar School and

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

where he was awarded a first class

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

degree in 1969 followed by a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1973.

Career and research

On completion of his PhD, he moved to a lectureship at the

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

. He held a personal chair at Kent when he moved to 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 ...

where he spent the 1990s involved with the development of the School of Biological Sciences as Head of Biochemistry and Research Dean. He moved to Oxford in 2002. He was Chairman 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. It was founded in 1911 and acquired the existing '' Biochemical Journal'' the following year. T ...

(1999–2002), and is a trustee of

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

. According to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

and

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

his most cited peer-reviewed scientific papers are on ''

Trypanosoma brucei ''Trypanosoma brucei'' is a species of parasitic Kinetoplastida, kinetoplastid belonging to the genus ''Trypanosoma'' that is present in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike other protozoan parasites that normally infect blood and tissue cells, it is excl ...

'' and ''

Trypanosoma cruzi ''Trypanosoma cruzi'' is a species of parasitic euglenoids. Among the protozoa, the trypanosomes characteristically bore tissue in another organism and feed on blood (primarily) and also lymph. This behaviour causes disease or the likelihood ...

''. More recently, the Gull laboratory has worked on ''

Leishmania ''Leishmania'' () is a genus of parasitic protozoans, single-celled eukaryotic organisms of the trypanosomatid group that are responsible for the disease leishmaniasis. The parasites are transmitted by sandflies of the genus '' Phlebotomus'' ...

''. After nine years as Principal Professor of

, Gull retired at the end of the 2017-18 academic year, and was succeeded by Kathy Willis.

Controversy

During his tenure as Principal of St Edmund Hall, he was alleged to have exploited college finances by claiming £500 in "Christmas presents" and "gifts" between November and December 2015, and £185 on a desk lamp in November 2017. Gull defended his Christmas expenses claims, but not the desk lamp claim. In 2010, Gull attracted criticism by his students and the national press for the decision to spend £15,000 on a college snowdrop garden amid budget cuts. He defended the decision, claiming the snowdrops will be "fantastic", but apologised for the way in which it was made. In 2015, Gull declined requests to clarify the status of claims made by

Bongbong Marcos Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr. (, , ; born September 13, 1957), commonly referred to by the initials BBM or PBBM, is a Filipino politician who has served as the 17th president of the Philippines since 2022. He is the second child ...

, son of Filipino dictator

Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer, politician, dictator, and Kleptocracy, kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled the c ...

, about whether he finished his degree at

Awards and honours

Among numerous prizes, fellowships, and other awards, Keith Gull was awarded the Marjory Stephenson Prize from the

Society for General Microbiology The Microbiology Society (previously the Society for General Microbiology) is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with a worldwide membership based in universities, industry, hospitals, research institutes and schools. It is the large ...

(1996), was elected Fellow of the

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academy, National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its ...

(1999), elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2003, and was appointed a

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

in the 2004

New Year Honours The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...

list for services to microbiology.http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/57155/supplements/8 "New Year Honours List 2004" He holds an honorary

Doctor of Science A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

from the

. His certificate of election to 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: Gull was elected a member of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 2,100 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gull, Keith 1948 births Living people Alumni of King's College London British microbiologists Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellows Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization English microbiologists Academics of the University of Kent Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford Principals of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Commanders of the Order of the British Empire People from Middlesbrough