Timothy John Mitchison is a cell biologist and systems biologist and Hasib Sabbagh Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in the United States. He is known for his discovery, with

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 ...

, of dynamic instability in microtubules, for studies of the mechanism of cell division, and for contributions to

chemical biology Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology. The discipline involves the application of chemical techniques, analysis, and often small molecules produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and ma ...

Education and early life

Mitchison was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School and completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford where he was an undergraduate student of

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of Oxford University, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the ...

, from 1976 to 1979. He moved to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1979 for his PhD which was supervised by

and investigated the dynamic instability of

microtubule Microtubules are polymers of tubulin that form part of the cytoskeleton and provide structure and shape to eukaryotic cells. Microtubules can be as long as 50 micrometres, as wide as 23 to 27 nm and have an inner diameter between 11 an ...

Career and research

Mitchison returned to the UK for postdoctoral research at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in London. In 1988 he returned to San Francisco where he was appointed assistant professor at UCSF. In 1994 he wrote an opinion piece for the journal ''Chemistry & Biology'' titled "Towards a pharmacological genetics" which helped to launch the field of

chemical genetics Chemical genetics is the investigation of the function of proteins and signal transduction pathways in cells by the screening of chemical libraries of small molecules. Chemical genetics is analogous to classical genetic screen where random mutations ...

. In 1997 he moved to Harvard University to become co-director of the Institute for Chemistry and Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, where he pioneered phenotype-based screening, discovering the small molecule

monastrol Monastrol is a cell-permeable small molecule inhibitor discovered by Thomas U. Mayer in the lab of Tim Mitchison. Monastrol was shown to inhibit the kinesin A kinesin is a protein belonging to a class of motor proteins found in eukaryotic cell ...

– the first small-molecule inhibitor of

mitosis In cell biology, mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle in which replicated chromosomes are separated into two new nuclei. Cell division by mitosis gives rise to genetically identical cells in which the total number of chromosomes is mainta ...

that does not target tubulin.

Monastrol Monastrol is a cell-permeable small molecule inhibitor discovered by Thomas U. Mayer in the lab of Tim Mitchison. Monastrol was shown to inhibit the kinesin A kinesin is a protein belonging to a class of motor proteins found in eukaryotic cell ...

was shown to inhibit

kinesin-5 Kinesin-like protein KIF11 is a molecular motor protein that is essential in mitosis. In humans it is coded for by the gene ''KIF11''. Kinesin-like protein KIF11 is a member of the kinesin superfamily, which are nanomotors that move along micro ...

, a motor protein. In 2003 he became Deputy Chair of the newly formed Department of Systems Biology, chaired by

. He works on aspects of mesoscale biology including the self-organization of the cytoskeleton and of cytoplasm. He collaborates extensively with Christine Field on the mechanism of cytokinesis.

Awards and honors

Mitchison was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1997 for “substantial contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge” One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: and served as president of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) in 2010. He was elected a member of the

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 Nati ...

of the United States in 2014 and delivered the

Keith R. Porter Lecture This lecture, named in memory of Keith R. Porter, is presented to an eminent cell biologist each year at the ASCB Annual Meeting. The ASCB Program Committee and the ASCB President recommend the Porter Lecturer to the Porter Endowment each year ...

in 2013.

Personal life

Mitchison is married to scientist Christine M. Field with whom he has two children. Mitchison comes from a family of distinguished biologists; his father is

Avrion Mitchison (Nicholas) Avrion Mitchison (born 5 May 1928) is a British zoologist and immunologist. Biography Mitchison was born in 1928, the son of the Labour politician Dick Mitchison (Baron Mitchison of Carradale in the County of Argyll, who died 197 ...

, his uncles are

Denis Mitchison Denis Anthony Mitchison (6 September 1919 – 2 July 2018) was a British bacteriologist. Early life, family and education Mitchison was born in Oxford in 1919,Geoff WattsDenis Anthony Mitchison. Obituary.The Lancet, Volume 392, 10150, p 814, ...

and Murdoch Mitchison, his great uncle was J.B.S. Haldane and his great-grandfather John Scott Haldane. His grandparents were the politician Dick Mitchison and the writer

Naomi Mitchison Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote over 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writin ...

(née Haldane). His younger sister Hannah M. Mitchison is also a biologist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchison, Timothy John 1958 births Living people 20th-century British biologists 21st-century British biologists Alumni of Merton College, Oxford People educated at Haberdashers' Boys' School Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Harvard University faculty Systems biologists University of California, San Francisco alumni University of California, San Francisco faculty Haldane family British biochemists