1.
Order of Merit
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The Order of Merit is an order of merit recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. While all members are awarded the right to use the post-nominal letters OM and a medallion for life, however, Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, advised against the new order, primarily because of its selection process. From its inception, the order has been open to women, Florence Nightingale being the first woman to receive the honour, several individuals have refused admission into the Order of Merit, such as Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman, and George Bernard Shaw. To date, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, remains the youngest person inducted into the Order of Merit, having been admitted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1968. All citizens of the Commonwealth realms are eligible for appointment to the Order of Merit, since 1991, it has been required that the insignia be returned upon the recipients death. However, it has been claimed by Stanley Martin, in his book The Order of Merit 1902–2002, One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour, that the Order of Merit is the pinnacle of the British honours system. Some orders of precedence are as follows, Martin, Stanley, The Order of Merit, One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour, New York City, I. B
2.
Order of the Companions of Honour
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The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. Founded on the date as the Order of the British Empire. The order consists of the Sovereign plus no more than 65 members, additionally, foreigners from outside the realms may be added as honorary members. Membership confers no title or precedence, but those inducted into the order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters CH. Appointments can be made on the advice of Commonwealth realm prime ministers, for Canadians, the advice to the Sovereign can come from a variety of officials. The quota numbers were altered in 1970 to 47 for the United Kingdom,7 for Australia,2 for New Zealand, the quota was adjusted again in 1975 by adding 2 places to the New Zealand quota and reducing the 9 for the other countries to 7. While able to nominate candidates to the Order, New Zealand, as of 2016 those countries have nominated only politicians who have served as Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. Men wear the badge on a ribbon and women on a bow at the left shoulder. Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II List of Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour List of honorary British Knights List of people who have declined a British honour
3.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
4.
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
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The Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science is made up of about 500 Australian scientists. Scientists judged by their peers to have made a contribution to knowledge in their field may be elected to Fellowship of the Academy. Fellows are often denoted using the post-nominal FAA, a small number of distinguished foreign scientists with substantial connections to Australian science are elected as Corresponding Members. Fellows are appointed for life, this also contains deceased fellows. Fellowship list From http, //www. sciencearchive. org. au Fellows elected in 2005, from https, //www. science. org. au Fellows elected in 2010
5.
Gloucestershire
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Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire originally included Bristol, then a small town. The local rural community moved to the city, and Bristols population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and it later became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. The official former postal county abbreviation was Glos, rather than the frequently used but erroneous Gloucs. or Glouc. In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, the RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion, the county recovered rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area. This is a chart of trend of gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling. Gloucestershire has mainly comprehensive schools with seven schools, two are in Stroud, one in Cheltenham and four in Gloucester. There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, all but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms, each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county. Most of the old market towns have parish churches, at Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, other notable buildings include Calcot Barn in Calcot, a relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, near Cheltenham is the 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone. Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve, the mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey
6.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
7.
Cambridge
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Cambridge is a university city and the county town of Cambridgeshire, England, on the River Cam about 50 miles north of London. At the United Kingdom Census 2011, its population was 123,867, there is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area in the Bronze Age and in Roman Britain, under Viking rule, Cambridge became an important trading centre. The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although city status was not conferred until 1951, the University of Cambridge, founded in 1209, is one of the top five universities in the world. The university includes the Cavendish Laboratory, Kings College Chapel, the citys skyline is dominated by the last two buildings, along with the spire of the Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church, the chimney of Addenbrookes Hospital and St Johns College Chapel tower. Anglia Ruskin University, evolved from the Cambridge School of Art, Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology Silicon Fen with industries such as software and bioscience and many start-up companies spun out of the university. More than 40% of the workforce has a higher education qualification, the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, one of the largest biomedical research clusters in the world, is soon to be home to AstraZeneca, a hotel and the relocated Papworth Hospital. Parkers Piece hosted the first ever game of Association football, the Strawberry Fair music and arts festival and Midsummer Fairs are held on Midsummer Common, and the annual Cambridge Beer Festival takes place on Jesus Green. The city is adjacent to the M11 and A14 roads, settlements have existed around the Cambridge area since prehistoric times. The earliest clear evidence of occupation is the remains of a 3, the principal Roman site is a small fort Duroliponte on Castle Hill, just northwest of the city centre around the location of the earlier British village. The fort was bounded on two sides by the lines formed by the present Mount Pleasant, continuing across Huntingdon Road into Clare Street, the eastern side followed Magrath Avenue, with the southern side running near to Chesterton Lane and Kettles Yard before turning northwest at Honey Hill. It was constructed around AD70 and converted to use around 50 years later. Evidence of more widespread Roman settlement has been discovered including numerous farmsteads, evidence exists that the invading Anglo-Saxons had begun occupying the area by the end of the century. Their settlement—also on and around Castle Hill—became known as Grantebrycge, Anglo-Saxon grave goods have been found in the area. During this period, Cambridge benefited from good trade links across the hard-to-travel fenlands, by the 7th century, the town was less significant and described by Bede as a little ruined city containing the burial site of Etheldreda. Cambridge was on the border between the East and Middle Anglian kingdoms and the settlement slowly expanded on both sides of the river, the arrival of the Vikings was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 875. Viking rule, the Danelaw, had been imposed by 878 Their vigorous trading habits caused the town to grow rapidly. During this period the centre of the town shifted from Castle Hill on the bank of the river to the area now known as the Quayside on the right bank. In 1068, two years after his conquest of England, William of Normandy built a castle on Castle Hill, like the rest of the newly conquered kingdom, Cambridge fell under the control of the King and his deputies
8.
Cambridgeshire
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The city of Cambridge is the county town. It contains most of the known as Silicon Fen. Local government is divided between Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council, which is a unitary authority. Cambridgeshire is noted as the site of Flag Fen in Fengate, one of the earliest-known Neolithic permanent settlements in the United Kingdom, compared in importance to Balbridie in Aberdeen, Scotland. A great quantity of archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, most items were found in Isleham. Cambridgeshire was recorded in the Domesday Book as Grantbridgeshire, covering a large part of East Anglia, Cambridgeshire today is the result of several local government unifications. In 1965, these two counties were merged to form Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Under the Local Government Act 1972 this merged with the county to the west, Huntingdon, the resulting county was called simply Cambridgeshire. Since 1998, the City of Peterborough has been a separately administered area and it is associated with Cambridgeshire for ceremonial purposes such as Lieutenancy, and joint functions such as policing and the fire service. In 2002, the conservation charity Plantlife unofficially designated Cambridgeshires county flower as the Pasqueflower, the Cambridgeshire Regiment, the county-based army unit, fought in the Boer War of South Africa, the First World War and Second World War. Due to the flat terrain and proximity to the continent, during the Second World War the military built many airfields here for RAF Bomber Command, RAF Fighter Command. In recognition of this collaboration, the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial is located in Madingley and it is the only WWII burial ground in England for American servicemen who died during that event. Most English counties have nicknames for their people, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire, the traditional nicknames for people from Cambridgeshire are Cambridgeshire Camel or Cambridgeshire Crane, referring to the wildfowl that were once abundant in the fens. The term Fenners was often applied to those who come from the country to the north of Cambridge. Since the late 20th century, this term is considered to be derogatory and has been discouraged in use, original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire are held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies. See also Geology of Cambridgeshire Large areas of the county are extremely low-lying, the highest point is in the village of Great Chishill at 146 m above sea level. Other prominent hills are Little Trees Hill and Wandlebury Hill in the Gog Magog Downs, Rivey Hill above Linton, Rowleys Hill, AWG plc is based in Huntingdon. The RAF has several stations in the Huntingdon and St Ives area, RAF Waterbeach,6 miles north of Cambridge, is a former RAF airfield, now used as an army barracks
9.
University of Cambridge
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The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, England, often regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Founded in 1209 and given royal status by King Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. The university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople, the two ancient universities share many common features and are often referred to jointly as Oxbridge. Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent colleges, Cambridge University Press, a department of the university, is the worlds oldest publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world. The university also operates eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridges libraries hold a total of around 15 million books, eight million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library. In the year ended 31 July 2015, the university had an income of £1.64 billion. The central university and colleges have an endowment of around £5.89 billion. The university is linked with the development of the high-tech business cluster known as Silicon Fen. It is a member of associations and forms part of the golden triangle of leading English universities and Cambridge University Health Partners. As of 2017, Cambridge is ranked the fourth best university by three ranking tables and no other institution in the world ranks in the top 10 for as many subjects. Cambridge is consistently ranked as the top university in the United Kingdom, the university has educated many notable alumni, including eminent mathematicians, scientists, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, writers, actors, and foreign Heads of State. Ninety-five Nobel laureates, fifteen British prime ministers and ten Fields medalists have been affiliated with Cambridge as students, faculty, by the late 12th century, the Cambridge region already had a scholarly and ecclesiastical reputation, due to monks from the nearby bishopric church of Ely. The University of Oxford went into suspension in protest, and most scholars moved to such as Paris, Reading. After the University of Oxford reformed several years later, enough remained in Cambridge to form the nucleus of the new university. A bull in 1233 from Pope Gregory IX gave graduates from Cambridge the right to teach everywhere in Christendom, the colleges at the University of Cambridge were originally an incidental feature of the system. No college is as old as the university itself, the colleges were endowed fellowships of scholars. There were also institutions without endowments, called hostels, the hostels were gradually absorbed by the colleges over the centuries, but they have left some indicators of their time, such as the name of Garret Hostel Lane. Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhouse, Cambridges first college, the most recently established college is Robinson, built in the late 1970s
10.
Protein primary structure
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Protein primary structure is the linear sequence of amino acids in a peptide or protein. By convention, the structure of a protein is reported starting from the amino-terminal end to the carboxyl-terminal end. Protein biosynthesis is most commonly performed by ribosomes in cells, peptides can also be synthesised in the laboratory. Protein primary structures can be sequenced, or inferred from DNA sequences. Amino acids are polymerised via peptide bonds to form a long backbone, in biological systems, proteins are produced during translation by a cells ribosomes. Some organisms can also make short peptides by non-ribosomal peptide synthesis, which often use amino acids other than the standard 20, peptides can be synthesised chemically via a range of laboratory methods. Chemical methods typically synthesise peptides in the order to biological protein synthesis. Protein sequence is typically notated as a string of letters, listing the amino acids starting at the end through to the carboxyl-terminal end. Either a three letter code or single letter code can be used to represent the 20 naturally occurring amino acids, peptides can be directly sequenced, or inferred from DNA sequences. Large sequence databases now exist that collate known protein sequences, in general, polypeptides are unbranched polymers, so their primary structure can often be specified by the sequence of amino acids along their backbone. The chiral centers of a chain can undergo racemization. Although it does not change the sequence, it affect the chemical properties of the sequence. In particular, the L-amino acids normally found in proteins can spontaneously isomerize at the C α atom to form D-amino acids, additionally, proline can form stable trans-isomers at the peptide bond. Finally, the protein can undergo a variety of posttranslational modifications, formylation − C H The N-terminal methionine usually found after translation has an N-terminus blocked with a formyl group. This formyl group is removed by the enzyme deformylase, pyroglutamate An N-terminal glutamine can attack itself, forming a cyclic pyroglutamate group. Myristoylation − C −12 − C H3 Similar to acetylation, instead of a simple methyl group, the myristoyl group has a tail of 14 hydrophobic carbons, which make it ideal for anchoring proteins to cellular membranes. The C-terminal carboxylate group of a polypeptide can also be modified, Glycosyl phosphatidylinositol attachment Glycosyl phosphatidylinositol is a large, hydrophobic phospholipid prosthetic group that achors proteins to cellular membranes. It is attached to the polypeptide C-terminus through a linkage that then connects to ethanolamine, thence to sundry sugars
11.
Insulin
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Insulin is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets. It regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein by promoting the absorption of, especially, glucose from the blood into fat, liver and skeletal muscle cells. In these tissues the absorbed glucose is converted into either glycogen via glycogenesis or fats via lipogenesis, or, in the case of the liver, Glucose production by the liver is strongly inhibited by high concentrations of insulin in the blood. Circulating insulin also affects the synthesis of proteins in a variety of tissues. It is therefore an anabolic hormone, promoting the conversion of small molecules in the blood into large molecules inside the cells, low insulin levels in the blood have the opposite effect by promoting widespread catabolism. Pancreatic beta cells are known to be sensitive to concentrations in the blood. When glucose concentrations in the blood are high, the pancreatic β cells secrete insulin into the blood, glucagon, through stimulating the liver to release glucose by glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis, has the opposite effect of insulin. If pancreatic beta cells are destroyed by an reaction, insulin can no longer be synthesized or be secreted into the blood. This results in type 1 diabetes mellitus, which is characterized by high blood glucose concentrations. In type 2 diabetes mellitus the destruction of cells is less pronounced than in type 1 diabetes. Instead there is an accumulation of amyloid in the pancreatic islets, Type 2 diabetes is characterized by high rates of glucagon secretion into the blood which are unaffected by, and unresponsive to the concentration of glucose in the blood glucose. Insulin is still secreted into the blood in response to the blood glucose, as a result, the insulin levels, even when the blood sugar level is normal, are much higher than they are in healthy persons. There are a variety of treatment regimens, none of which is entirely satisfactory, when the pancreas’s capacity to secrete insulin can no longer keep the blood sugar level within normal bounds, insulin injections are given. The human insulin protein is composed of 51 amino acids, and has a mass of 5808 Da. It is a dimer of an A-chain and a B-chain, which are linked together by disulfide bonds, insulins structure varies slightly between species of animals. Insulin from animal sources differs somewhat in effectiveness from human insulin because of these variations, porcine insulin is especially close to the human version, and was widely used to treat type 1 diabetics before human insulin could be produced in large quantities by recombinant DNA technologies. The crystal structure of insulin in the state was determined by Dorothy Hodgkin. It is on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a health system
12.
Sanger sequencing
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Developed by Frederick Sanger and colleagues in 1977, it was the most widely used sequencing method for approximately 39 years. More recently, higher volume Sanger sequencing has been supplanted by Next-Gen sequencing methods, especially for large-scale, however, the Sanger method remains in wide use, for smaller-scale projects, validation of Next-Gen results and for obtaining especially long contiguous DNA sequence reads. The ddNTPs may be radioactively or fluorescently labeled for detection in automated sequencing machines, the DNA sample is divided into four separate sequencing reactions, containing all four of the standard deoxynucleotides and the DNA polymerase. To each reaction is added one of the four dideoxynucleotides. Putting it in a more sensible order, four reactions are needed in this process to test all four ddNTPs. Following rounds of template DNA extension from the primer, the resulting DNA fragments are heat denatured and separated by size using gel electrophoresis. In the original publication of 1977, the formation of base-paired loops of ssDNA was a cause of difficulty in resolving bands at some locations. This is frequently performed using a denaturing polyacrylamide-urea gel with each of the four reactions run in one of four individual lanes, the DNA bands may then be visualized by autoradiography or UV light and the DNA sequence can be directly read off the X-ray film or gel image. In the image on the right, X-ray film was exposed to the gel, a dark band in a lane indicates a DNA fragment that is the result of chain termination after incorporation of a dideoxynucleotide. The relative positions of the different bands among the four lanes, dye-primer sequencing facilitates reading in an optical system for faster and more economical analysis and automation. The later development by Leroy Hood and coworkers of fluorescently labeled ddNTPs and primers set the stage for automated, chain-termination methods have greatly simplified DNA sequencing. For example, chain-termination-based kits are available that contain the reagents needed for sequencing, pre-aliquoted. Limitations include non-specific binding of the primer to the DNA, affecting accurate read-out of the DNA sequence, dye-terminator sequencing utilizes labelling of the chain terminator ddNTPs, which permits sequencing in a single reaction, rather than four reactions as in the labelled-primer method. In dye-terminator sequencing, each of the four dideoxynucleotide chain terminators is labelled with fluorescent dyes, owing to its greater expediency and speed, dye-terminator sequencing is now the mainstay in automated sequencing. This problem has been addressed with the use of modified DNA polymerase enzyme systems and dyes that minimize incorporation variability, the dye-terminator sequencing method, along with automated high-throughput DNA sequence analyzers, is now being used for the vast majority of sequencing projects. Automated DNA-sequencing instruments can sequence up to 384 DNA samples in a single batch, batch runs may occur up to 24 times a day. DNA sequencers separate strands by using capillary electrophoresis, they detect and record dye fluorescence. Sequencing reactions, cleanup and re-suspension of samples in a solution are performed separately
13.
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
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The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre, is a non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is located on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus by the village of Hinxton and it shares this location with the European Bioinformatics Institute. It was established in 1992 as The Sanger Centre, named after double Nobel Laureate, from its inception the Institute established and has maintained a policy of data sharing, and does much of its research in collaboration. Since 2000, the Institute expanded its mission to understand the role of genetics in health, the Institute now employs around 900 people and engages in four main areas of research, Human genetics, pathogen genetics, mouse and zebrafish genetics and bioinformatics. In 1993 the then 17 Sanger Institute staff moved into laboratory space at Hinxton Hall in Cambridgeshire. This 55-acre site was to become the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, the Genome Campus also includes the Wellcome Trust Conference Centre and the European Bioinformatics Institute. A major extension of the campus was opened in 2005, the buildings accommodate new laboratories. In discussing the name of the centre, Sanger told John Sulston, the founding director, Sulston commented, I rather wished I hadn’t asked. The Sanger Institutes sequencing staff handle millions of DNA samples each week, the Institute capitalises on leading-edge technologies to answer questions unanswerable only a few years ago. The advances in technology allow the Sanger Institute to carry out sequencing of the genomes of humans, vertebrate species and pathogens, at an ever increasing pace. The Institute has more than 100 ongoing pathogen sequencing projects, the output of the Sanger Institute is around 10 billion bases of raw sequence data per day. Bioinformatic databases resources are one of the outcomes of research programmes that the Sanger Institute is involved in, the Institute engages in several areas of research, The hall Institutes research in human genetics focuses on the characterisation of human genetic variation in health and disease. The data from the projects was made freely available in public databases in June 2010. The Sanger Institute is also part of the International Cancer Genome Consortium and it is also part of the GENCODE and ENCODE research programmes to create an encyclopaedia of DNA elements. Projects include the study of development, cancer, hearing and behaviour, the Institute carries out research in pathogen genetics to bolster understanding of the effects of genome variation on the biology of host-pathogen interactions. Research is underway at the Sanger Institute into the genomes of pathogens including many bacteria, the Pathogen Sequencing Advisory Group considers proposals or suggestions for sequencing of any genome of particular importance. All the genomes after sequencing are made available at the web-based onsite-maintained database, the Sanger Institutes bioinformatics teams have developed IT systems for sequencing and postgenomic research. The Institute houses genome resources, RNA, protein and other family resources, researchers worldwide are able to use these resources to make inferences of genomic knowledge through computational analysis and integration of data
14.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on proposal of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry which consists of five elected by Academy. The award is presented in Stockholm at a ceremony on December 10. The first Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 1901 to Jacobus Henricus van t Hoff, of the Netherlands, for his discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions. From 1901 to 2016, the award has been bestowed on a total of 174 individuals, though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, and signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his assets,31 million Swedish kronor, to establish. Due to the level of surrounding the will, it was not until April 26,1897 that it was approved by the Storting. The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed, the Karolinska Institutet on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, the Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundations newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II, according to Nobels will, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences were to award the Prize in Chemistry. The committee and institution serving as the board for the prize typically announce the names of the laureates in October. The prize is awarded at formal ceremonies held annually on December 10. The highlight of the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm is when each Nobel Laureate steps forward to receive the prize from the hands of His Majesty the King of Sweden, the Nobel Laureate receives three things, a diploma, a medal and a document confirming the prize amount. Later the Nobel Banquet is held in Stockholm City Hall, a maximum of three laureates and two different works may be selected. The award can be given to a maximum of three recipients per year and it consists of a gold medal, a diploma, and a cash grant. The Nobel Laureates in chemistry are selected by a committee that consists of five elected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In its first stage, several people are asked to nominate candidates
15.
Copley Medal
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The Copley Medal is a scientific award given by the Royal Society, London, for outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science. It alternates between the physical and the biological sciences, the medal was created following a donation of £100 to be used for carrying out experiments by Sir Godfrey Copley, for which the interest on the amount was used for several years. A second donation of £1666 13s, 4d. was made by Sir Joseph William Copley in 1881, and the interest from that amount is used to pay for the medal. The medal in its current format is made of silver gilt, since its inception, it has been awarded to many notable scientists, including 52 winners of the Nobel Prize,17 in Physics,21 in Physiology or Medicine, and 14 in Chemistry. John Theophilus Desaguliers has won the medal the most often, winning in 1734,1736 and 1741, in 1976, Dorothy Hodgkin became the first and as of 2015 the only female recipient
16.
Biochemistry
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Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. By controlling information flow through biochemical signaling and the flow of energy through metabolism. Biochemistry is closely related to biology, the study of the molecular mechanisms by which genetic information encoded in DNA is able to result in the processes of life. Depending on the definition of the terms used, molecular biology can be thought of as a branch of biochemistry, or biochemistry as a tool with which to investigate. The chemistry of the cell depends on the reactions of smaller molecules. These can be inorganic, for water and metal ions, or organic, for example the amino acids. The mechanisms by which cells harness energy from their environment via chemical reactions are known as metabolism, the findings of biochemistry are applied primarily in medicine, nutrition, and agriculture. In medicine, biochemists investigate the causes and cures of diseases, in nutrition, they study how to maintain health and study the effects of nutritional deficiencies. In agriculture, biochemists investigate soil and fertilizers, and try to discover ways to improve crop cultivation, crop storage and pest control. However, biochemistry as a scientific discipline has its beginning sometime in the 19th century, or a little earlier. Gowland Hopkins on enzymes and the nature of biochemistry. The term biochemistry itself is derived from a combination of biology, the German chemist Carl Neuberg however is often cited to have coined the word in 1903, while some credited it to Franz Hofmeister. Then, in 1828, Friedrich Wöhler published a paper on the synthesis of urea and these techniques allowed for the discovery and detailed analysis of many molecules and metabolic pathways of the cell, such as glycolysis and the Krebs cycle. Another significant historic event in biochemistry is the discovery of the gene and this part of biochemistry is often called molecular biology. In the 1950s, James D. Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, in 1958, George Beadle and Edward Tatum received the Nobel Prize for work in fungi showing that one gene produces one enzyme. In 1988, Colin Pitchfork was the first person convicted of murder with DNA evidence, mello received the 2006 Nobel Prize for discovering the role of RNA interference, in the silencing of gene expression. Around two dozen of the 92 naturally occurring elements are essential to various kinds of biological life. Most rare elements on Earth are not needed by life, while a few common ones are not used, most organisms share element needs, but there are a few differences between plants and animals
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Laboratory of Molecular Biology
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A new £212m replacement building constructed close by to the original site on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus was opened in May 2013. The road outside the new building is named Francis Crick Avenue after the 1962 joint Nobel Prize winner, the LMB has a deliberately simple administrative environment. Their recommendations were simply advisory, leaving the division leaders a free hand as to how to run their affairs, within the LMB, Perutz’s criterion of how to arrange things was that the act of doing science should be facilitated at all levels. The LMB had a budget, there were no personal budgets or equipment — everything was communal. It had state of the art equipment and was financed by the MRC. Chemical reagents, glassware and other expendables could be withdrawn from a store with only a signature required. Key to the functioning of the lab was Michael Fuller. There was no hierarchy, everyone was on first-name terms. Most members of the lab met freely in the canteen, which was said to assist inter-divisional communication and collaboration, today the LMB has around 400 scientists, of whom 130 are postdoctoral researchers and 90 students. As of 2015 there are around fifty group leaders Groups are part of one of the four divisions of the LMB, Cell Biology, Neurobiology, Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry, here, in the Cavendish laboratory, he started his lifelong work on hemoglobin. The death of Lord Rutherford led to his successor, Lawrence Bragg, Bragg became a major supporter of Perutz and his group in those early days. After World War II, many scientists from the side of science turned to biology, bringing with them a new way of thinking. John Kendrew joined Perutz’s group to study a protein related to hemoglobin — myoglobin — in 1946. In 1947, the Medical Research Council, under the guidance of its Secretary Harold Himsworth, decided to form, the group, which by 1948 also included Hugh Huxley working on muscle, was joined in 1949 by Francis Crick, who worked initially on protein crystallography. In 1951 they were joined by James Watson, Hugh Huxley discovered that muscle contraction works by a sliding filament mechanism. In 1957 the group’s name was changed to the “MRC Unit for Molecular Biology”, also that year, Vernon Ingram discovered that the disease sickle cell anaemia is caused by a single amino acid change in the hemoglobin molecule and Sydney Brenner joined the Unit. In 1958, Crick’s review “On Protein Synthesis” appeared, this out, for the first time, the central dogma of molecular biology, the sequence hypothesis. In 1961 Brenner helped discover messenger RNA and, in the year, he
18.
Thesis
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A thesis or dissertation is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the authors research and findings. In some contexts, the thesis or a cognate is used for part of a bachelors or masters course, while dissertation is normally applied to a doctorate, while in other contexts. The term graduate thesis is used to refer to both masters theses and doctoral dissertations. The required complexity or quality of research of a thesis or dissertation can vary by country, university, or program, the word dissertation can at times be used to describe a treatise without relation to obtaining an academic degree. The term thesis is used to refer to the general claim of an essay or similar work. The term thesis comes from the Greek θέσις, meaning something put forth, Dissertation comes from the Latin dissertātiō, meaning path. A thesis may be arranged as a thesis by publication or a monograph, with or without appended papers, an ordinary monograph has a title page, an abstract, a table of contents, comprising the various chapters, and a bibliography or a references section. They differ in their structure in accordance with the different areas of study. In a thesis by publication, the chapters constitute an introductory, Dissertations normally report on a research project or study, or an extended analysis of a topic. The structure of the thesis or dissertation explains the purpose, the research literature which impinges on the topic of the study, the methods used. Degree-awarding institutions often define their own style that candidates have to follow when preparing a thesis document. Other applicable international standards include ISO2145 on section numbers, ISO690 on bibliographic references, some older house styles specify that front matter uses a separate page-number sequence from the main text, using Roman numerals. They therefore avoid the traditional separate number sequence for front matter, however, strict standards are not always required. Most Italian universities, for example, have only general requirements on the size and the page formatting. A thesis or dissertation committee is a committee that supervises a students dissertation, the committee members are doctors in their field and have the task of reading the dissertation, making suggestions for changes and improvements, and sitting in on the defense. Sometimes, at least one member of the committee must be a professor in a department that is different from that of the student, all the dissertation referees must already have achieved at least the academic degree that the candidate is trying to reach. At English-speaking Canadian universities, writings presented in fulfillment of undergraduate coursework requirements are normally called papers, a longer paper or essay presented for completion of a 4-year bachelors degree is sometimes called a major paper. High-quality research papers presented as the study of a postgraduate consecutive bachelor with Honours or Baccalaureatus Cum Honore degree are called thesis
19.
Elizabeth Blackburn
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Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, AC, FRS, FAA, FRSN is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is currently the President of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Previously she was a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who studied the telomere. Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere, for this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, becoming the only Tasmanian-born Nobel laureate. She also worked in medical ethics, and was dismissed from the Bush Administrations Presidents Council on Bioethics. Elizabeth Helen Blackburn was born in Hobart, Tasmania on 26 November 1948 and her family moved to the town when she was four, where she attended the Broadland House Church of England Girls Grammar School until the age of sixteen. Upon her familys relocation to Melbourne, she then attended University High School and she then carried out postdoctoral work in molecular and cellular biology between 1975 and 1977 at Yale University. In 1981, Blackburn joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, Blackburn is currently the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology at UCSF, and a non-resident fellow of the Salk Institute. She is the president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research, Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere. Blackburn recalls, Carol had done this experiment, and we stood, just in the lab, and I remember sort of standing there, and she had this – we call it a gel. Its an autoradiogram, because there was trace amounts of radioactivity that were used to develop an image of the separated DNA products of what turned out to be the enzyme reaction. I dont remember any details in that area, Ah, there was a regularity to it. For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider, in recent years Blackburn and her colleagues have been investigating the effect of stress on telomerase and telomeres with particular emphasis on mindfulness meditation. She is also one of biologists in the 1995 science documentary Death by Design/The Life and Times of Life. Studies suggest that psychological stress may accelerate ageing at the cellular level. Intimate partner violence was found to shorten telomere length in formerly abused women versus never abused women, possibly causing poorer overall health, Blackburn was appointed a member of the Presidents Council on Bioethics in 2002. She supported human embryonic cell research, in opposition to the Bush Administration and her Council terms were terminated by White House directive on 27 February 2004. This was followed by expressions of outrage over her removal by many scientists, there is a growing sense that scientific research—which, after all, is defined by the quest for truth—is being manipulated for political ends, wrote Blackburn. There is evidence that such manipulation is being achieved through the stacking of the membership of advisory bodies and through the delay, Blackburn serves on the Science Advisory Board of the Genetics Policy Institute. H. A
20.
Rodney Robert Porter
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Rodney Robert Porter, CH, FRS was a British biochemist and Nobel laureate. Born in Newton-le-Willows, St Helens, Lancashire, England, Rodney Robert Porter received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Liverpool in 1939 for Biochemistry and he moved to the University of Cambridge where he became Fred Sangers first PhD student. He was awarded his doctorate in 1948, in 1967 he was appointed Whitley Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. His colleague Elizabeth Press worked with him at NIMR, St Marys, Porter was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1964. He won the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1966, in 1972, Porter shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology with Gerald M. Edelman for determining the chemical structure of an antibody. Using the enzyme papain, he broke the bloods immunoglobin into fragments and he also looked into how the bloods immunoglobins react with cellular surfaces. He subsequently worked with colleagues Kenneth BM Reid, Robert Sim, in 1991, Raymond Dwek founded the Oxford Glycobiology Institute at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford and this building was named after Porter as the Rodney Porter building. Porter died in an accident at Winchester
21.
John Bardeen
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Bardeens developments in superconductivity, which won him his second Nobel, are used in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy or its medical sub-tool magnetic resonance imaging. In 1990, John Bardeen appeared on LIFE Magazines list of 100 Most Influential Americans of the Century, John Bardeen was born in Madison, Wisconsin on May 23,1908. He was the son of Charles Russell Bardeen, the first dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Bardeen attended the University High School at Madison for several years, but graduated from Madison Central High School in 1923. He graduated from school at age fifteen, even though he could have graduated several years earlier. His graduation was postponed due to taking courses at another high school. He entered the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1923, while in college he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. He raised the membership fees partly by playing billiards. He was initiated as a member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and he chose engineering because he didnt want to be an academic like his father and also because it is mathematical. He also felt that engineering had good job prospects, Bardeen received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1928 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He graduated in 1928 despite taking a year off during his degree to work in Chicago and he received his Master of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1929 from Wisconsin. Bardeen stayed on for time at Wisconsin furthering his studies, but he eventually went to work for Gulf Research Laboratories. From 1930 to 1933, Bardeen worked there on the development of methods for the interpretation of magnetic, after the work failed to keep his interest, he applied and was accepted to the graduate program in mathematics at Princeton University. Bardeen studied both mathematics and physics as a student, ending up writing his thesis on a problem in solid-state physics. Before completing his thesis, he was offered a position as Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University in 1935 and he received his Ph. D. in mathematical physics from Princeton in 1936. In October 1945, John Bardeen began work at Bell Labs, Bardeen was a member of a Solid State Physics Group, led by William Shockley and chemist Stanley Morgan. Other personnel working in the group were Walter Brattain, physicist Gerald Pearson, chemist Robert Gibney, electronics expert Hilbert Moore and he moved his family to Summit, New Jersey. The assignment of the group was to seek an alternative to fragile glass vacuum tube amplifiers. Their first attempts were based on Shockleys ideas about using an electrical field on a semiconductor to affect its conductivity
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Protein structure
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Protein structure is the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in a protein molecule. Proteins are polymers — specifically polypeptides — formed from sequences of amino acids, a single amino acid monomer may also be called a residue indicating a repeating unit of a polymer. Proteins form by amino acids undergoing condensation reactions, in which the amino acids lose one water molecule per reaction in order to attach to one another with a peptide bond. By convention, a chain under 30 amino acids is often identified as a peptide, to understand the functions of proteins at a molecular level, it is often necessary to determine their three-dimensional structure. Protein structures range in size from tens to several amino acids. By physical size, proteins are classified as nanoparticles, between 1–100 nm, very large aggregates can be formed from protein subunits. For example, many thousands of actin molecules assemble into a microfilament, a protein may undergo reversible structural changes in performing its biological function. The alternative structures of the protein are referred to as different conformational isomers, or simply, conformations. There are four levels of protein structure. Each α-amino acid consists of a backbone that is present in all the amino acid types, an exception from this rule is proline. Because the carbon atom is bound to four different groups it is chiral, glycine however, is not chiral since its side chain is a hydrogen atom. A simple mnemonic for correct L-form is CORN, when the Cα atom is viewed with the H in front, the primary structure of a protein refers to the linear sequence of amino acids in the polypeptide chain. The primary structure is held together by covalent bonds such as peptide bonds, the two ends of the polypeptide chain are referred to as the carboxyl terminus and the amino terminus based on the nature of the free group on each extremity. Counting of residues always starts at the N-terminal end, which is the end where the group is not involved in a peptide bond. The primary structure of a protein is determined by the corresponding to the protein. A specific sequence of nucleotides in DNA is transcribed into mRNA, the sequence of amino acids in insulin was discovered by Frederick Sanger, establishing that proteins have defining amino acid sequences. The sequence of a protein is unique to that protein, and defines the structure, the sequence of a protein can be determined by methods such as Edman degradation or tandem mass spectrometry. Often, however, it is directly from the sequence of the gene using the genetic code
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Walter Gilbert
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Walter Gilbert is an American biochemist, physicist, molecular biology pioneer, and Nobel laureate. Walter Gilbert was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 21,1932, the son of Emma, a child psychologist, and Richard V. Gilbert, an economist. He studied for his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a Ph. D in Physics supervised by the Nobel laureate Abdus Salam in 1957, Gilbert returned to Harvard in 1956 and was appointed assistant professor of physics in 1959. Gilberts wife Celia had begun working for James Watson, and this led to Gilbert becoming interested in problems in molecular biology, Watson and Gilbert would run their laboratory jointly through most of the 1960s, until Watson left for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In 1964 he was promoted to professor of biophysics and promoted again in 1968 to professor of biochemistry. He is a co-founder of the biotech start-up companies Biogen and Myriad Genetics, Gilbert left his position at Harvard to run Biogen as CEO, but was later asked to resign by the companys board of directors. He is also a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute, Gilbert has served as the chairman of the Harvard Society of Fellows. In 1996, Gilbert co-founded Paratek Pharmaceuticals Inc. along with Dr. Stuart B, Gilbert served as Chairman until 2014. Gilbert was a proponent of sequencing the human genome. At a March 1986 meeting in Santa Fe New Mexico he proclaimed The total human sequence is the grail of human genetics, in 1987, he proposed starting a company called Genome Corporation to sequence the genome and sell access to the information. Gilbert was a critic of David Baltimore in the handling of the scientific fraud accusations against Thereza Imanishi-Kari. Gilbert also joined the controversy over the cause of AIDS. With his Ph. D. student Benno Müller-Hill, Gilbert was the first to purify the lac repressor, together with Allan Maxam, Gilbert developed a new DNA sequencing method using chemical methods developed by Andrei Mirzabekov. His approach to the first synthesis of insulin via recombinant DNA lost out to Genentechs approach which used genes built up from the rather than from natural sources. Gilberts effort was hampered by a moratorium on recombinant DNA work in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gilbert first proposed the existence of introns and exons and explained the evolution of introns in a seminal 1978 News and Views paper published in Nature. In 1986, Gilbert proposed the RNA world hypothesis for the origin of life, in 1969, Gilbert was awarded Harvards Ledlie Prize. In 1972 he was named American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology, in 1979, Gilbert was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Frederick Sanger
24.
DNA sequencing
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DNA sequencing is the process of determining the precise order of nucleotides within a DNA molecule. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases—adenine, guanine, cytosine, the advent of rapid DNA sequencing methods has greatly accelerated biological and medical research and discovery. The first DNA sequences were obtained in the early 1970s by academic researchers using laborious methods based on two-dimensional chromatography, following the development of fluorescence-based sequencing methods with a DNA sequencer, DNA sequencing has become easier and orders of magnitude faster. DNA sequencing may be used to determine the sequence of genes, larger genetic regions, full chromosomes or entire genomes. DNA sequencing is also the most efficient way to sequence RNA or proteins, in fact, DNA sequencing has become a key technology in many areas of biology and other sciences such as medicine, forensics, or anthropology. Sequencing is used in biology to study genomes and the proteins they encode. Information obtained using sequencing allows researchers to identify changes in genes, associations with diseases and phenotypes, the field of metagenomics involves identification of organisms present in a body of water, sewage, dirt, debris filtered from the air, or swab samples from organisms. Knowing which organisms are present in an environment is critical to research in ecology, epidemiology, microbiology. Sequencing enables researchers to determine which types of microbes may be present in a microbiome, medical technicians may sequence genes from patients to determine if there is risk of genetic diseases. This is a form of testing, though some genetic tests may not involve DNA sequencing. DNA sequencing may be used along with DNA profiling methods for forensic identification, the canonical structure of DNA has four bases, thymine, adenine, cytosine, and guanine. DNA sequencing is the determination of the order of these bases in a molecule of DNA. However, there are other bases that may be present in a molecule. In some viruses, cytosine may be replaced by hydroxy methyl or hydroxy methyl glucose cytosine, in mammalian DNA, variant bases with methyl groups or phosphosulfate may be found. Depending on the technique, a particular modification, e. g. the 5mC common in humans. This situation changed after 1944 as a result of experiments by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod. This was the first time that DNA was shown capable of transforming the properties of cells, in 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick put forward their double-helix model of DNA, based on crystallized X-ray structures being studied by Rosalind Franklin. According to the model, DNA is composed of two strands of nucleotides coiled around each other, linked together by bonds and running in opposite directions
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Paul Berg
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Paul Berg is an American biochemist and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980, along with Walter Gilbert, the award recognized their contributions to basic research involving nucleic acids. Berg received his education at Penn State University, where he majored in biochemistry. He received his Ph. D. in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1952, in addition to the Nobel Prize, Berg was presented with the National Medal of Science in 1983 and the National Library of Medicine Medal in 1986. Berg is a member of the Board of Sponsors for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Berg was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Sarah Brodsky, a homemaker, and Harry Berg, a clothing manufacturer. He is a member of the Beta Sigma Rho fraternity and he worked with Arthur Kornberg, while at Washington University. Berg was also tenured as a fellow at Clare Hall. He was a professor at Washington University School of Medicine from 1955 until 1959, after 1959, Berg moved to Stanford University, where he taught biochemistry from 1959 until 2000 and served as director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine from 1985 until 2000. In 2000 he retired from his administrative and teaching posts, continuing to be active in research, Bergs postgraduate studies involved the use of radioisotope tracers to study intermediary metabolism. This resulted in the understanding of how foodstuffs are converted to cellular materials, paul Bergs doctorate paper is now known as the conversion of formic acid, formaldehyde and methanol to fully reduced states of methyl groups in methionine. He was also one of the first to demonstrate that folic acid, Berg is arguably most famous for his pioneering work involving gene splicing of recombinant DNA. Berg was the first scientist to create a molecule containing DNA from two different species by inserting DNA from another species into a molecule and this gene-splicing technique was a fundamental step in the development of modern genetic engineering. After developing the technique, Berg used it for his studies of viral chromosomes, Berg is currently a Professor Emeritus at Stanford. Berg is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and he was also an organizer of the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA in 1975. The previous year, Berg and other scientists had called for a moratorium on certain recombinant DNA research until they could evaluate the risks. That influential conference did evaluate the potential hazards and set guidelines for biotechnology research and it can be seen as an early application of the precautionary principle. Berg was awarded one-half of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with the half being shared by Walter Gilbert. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts, in 1983, Ronald Reagan presented Berg with the National Medal of Science
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Recombinant DNA
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Recombinant DNA is possible because DNA molecules from all organisms share the same chemical structure. They differ only in the sequence within that identical overall structure. Recombinant DNA is the name for a piece of DNA that has been created by the combination of at least two strands. Recombinant DNA molecules are called chimeric DNA, because they can be made of material from two different species, like the mythical chimera. R-DNA technology uses palindromic sequences and leads to the production of sticky, the DNA sequences used in the construction of recombinant DNA molecules can originate from any species. For example, plant DNA may be joined to bacterial DNA, in addition, DNA sequences that do not occur anywhere in nature may be created by the chemical synthesis of DNA, and incorporated into recombinant molecules. Using recombinant DNA technology and synthetic DNA, literally any DNA sequence may be created and introduced into any of a wide range of living organisms. Proteins that can result from the expression of recombinant DNA within living cells are termed recombinant proteins, when recombinant DNA encoding a protein is introduced into a host organism, the recombinant protein is not necessarily produced. Expression of foreign proteins requires the use of specialized expression vectors, molecular cloning is the laboratory process used to create recombinant DNA. It is one of two widely used methods, along with polymerase chain reaction, used to direct the replication of any specific DNA sequence chosen by the experimentalist, there are two fundamental differences between the methods. One is that cloning involves replication of the DNA within a living cell, while PCR replicates DNA in the test tube. The other difference is that cloning involves cutting and pasting DNA sequences, formation of recombinant DNA requires a cloning vector, a DNA molecule that replicates within a living cell. The choice of vector for molecular cloning depends on the choice of host organism, the size of the DNA to be cloned, the DNA segments can be combined by using a variety of methods, such as restriction enzyme/ligase cloning or Gibson assembly. These steps are described in detail in a related article. Following transplantation into the host organism, the foreign DNA contained within the recombinant DNA construct may or may not be expressed and that is, the DNA may simply be replicated without expression, or it may be transcribed and translated and a recombinant protein is produced. Specific changes to the host organism may be made to improve expression of the ectopic gene, in most cases, organisms containing recombinant DNA have apparently normal phenotypes. Significant exceptions exist, and are discussed below, gross phenotypic changes are not the norm, unless the recombinant gene has been chosen and modified so as to generate biological activity in the host organism. In some cases, recombinant DNA can have deleterious effects even if it is not expressed, one mechanism by which this happens is insertional inactivation, in which the rDNA becomes inserted into a host cells gene
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General practitioner
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In the medical profession, a general practitioner is a medical doctor who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education to patients. A general practitioner manages types of illness that present in a way at an early stage of development. The holistic approach of general practice aims to take into consideration the biological, psychological and their duties are not confined to specific organs of the body, and they have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues. They are trained to treat patients of any age and sex to levels of complexity that vary between countries, the role of a GP can vary greatly between countries. In some healthcare systems GPs work in primary care centers where they play a role in the healthcare team. The term general practitioner or GP is common in the Republic of Ireland, in these countries the word physician is largely reserved for certain other types of medical specialists, notably in internal medicine. Historically, the role of a GP was once performed by any doctor qualified in a school working in the community. However, since the 1950s general practice has become a specialty in its own right, the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 set the intellectual foundation of what primary care and general practice is nowadays. The basic medical degrees in India and Bangladesh are MBBS, BAMS, BHMS and BUMS and these generally consist of a four-and-a-half-year course followed by a year of compulsory rotatory internship in India. In Bangladesh it is five years followed by a year of compulsory rotatory internship. The internship requires the candidate to work in all departments for a period of time. The registration of doctors is usually managed by state medical councils, a permanent registration as a Registered Medical Practitioner is granted only after satisfactory completion of the compulsory internship. The Federation of Family Physicians Associations of India is an organization which has a connection with more than 8000 general practitioners through having affiliated membership, in Pakistan,5 years of MBBS is followed by one year of internship in different specialties. Pakistan Medical and Dental Council then confers permanent registration, after which the candidate may choose to practice as a GP or opt for specialty training, Family Medicine residency training programme of Ziauddin University is approved for Fellowship in Family Medicine. In France, the médecin généraliste is responsible for the term care in a population. This implies prevention, education, care of the diseases and traumas that do not require a specialist and they also follow the severe diseases day-to-day. They have a role in the survey of epidemics, a role. They often go to a home when the patient cannot come to the consulting room
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Quakers
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Quakers are members of a historically Christian group of religious movements generally known as the Religious Society of Friends. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, to differing extents, the different movements that make up the Religious Society of Friends/Friends Church avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2007, there were about 359,000 adult Quakers, in 2012, there were 377,055 adult Quakers. Some meetings of both types have Recorded Ministers in their meetings—Friends recognised for their gift of vocal ministry, the first Quakers lived in mid-17th century England. The movement arose from the Legatine-Arians and other dissenting Protestant groups, some of these early Quaker ministers were women. They emphasized a personal and direct experience of Christ, acquired through both direct religious experience and the reading and studying of the Bible. Quakers focused their private life on developing behaviour and speech reflecting emotional purity, in the past, Quakers were known for their use of thee as an ordinary pronoun, refusal to participate in war, plain dress, refusal to swear oaths, opposition to slavery, and teetotalism. & J. Clark and the big three British confectionery makers Cadbury, Rowntree and Frys, and philanthropic efforts, including abolition of slavery, prison reform, during and after the English Civil War many dissenting Christian groups emerged, including the Seekers and others. A young man named George Fox was dissatisfied with the teachings of the Church of England and he had a vision on Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England, in which he believed that the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered. Following this he travelled around England, the Netherlands, and Barbados preaching and teaching with the aim of converting new adherents to his faith, the central theme of his Gospel message was that Christ has come to teach his people himself. His followers considered themselves to be the restoration of the true Christian church, in 1650, Fox was brought before the magistrates Gervase Bennet and Nathaniel Barton, on a charge of religious blasphemy. According to George Foxs autobiography, Bennet was the first that called us Quakers and it is thought that George Fox was referring to Isaiah 66,2 or Ezra 9,4. Thus, the name Quaker began as a way of ridiculing George Foxs admonition, Quakerism gained a considerable following in England and Wales, and the numbers increased to a peak of 60,000 in England and Wales by 1680. This was relaxed after the Declaration of Indulgence and stopped under the Act of Toleration 1689, with the restructuring of the family and household came new roles for women, Fox and Fell viewed the Quaker mother as essential to developing holy conversation in her children and husband. Quaker women were responsible for the spirituality of the larger community, coming together in meetings that regulated marriage. The persecution of Quakers in North America began in 1656 when English Quaker missionaries Mary Fisher and they were considered heretics because of their insistence on individual obedience to the Inner Light. They were imprisoned and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony and their books were burned, and most of their property was confiscated. They were imprisoned in terrible conditions, then deported, in 1660, English Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged on Boston Common for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony
29.
Tanworth-in-Arden
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Tanworth-in-Arden is a small village in the county of Warwickshire, England. It is located south-east of Birmingham in the Tanworth-in-Arden parish and is administered by Stratford-on-Avon District Council. The population of the parish was 3,104 at the 2011 UK census, the suffix to the name Tanworth refers to the Forest of Arden in which the village lay. Notable historical buildings still standing in the village include The Bell Inn public house, the boxer Gentleman Jack Hood was the licensee of The Bell for 36 years, displaying above the bar the Lonsdale belt that he won on 31 May 1926. Tanworth was the home of folk musician Nick Drake and his sister. His grave lies in the parish churchyard, the grave of nine-times world motorcycle champion Mike Hailwood MBE, GM, and his daughter Michelle, who were both killed in a car accident at Portway in 1981, are also to be found here. An annual memorial motorcycle run is held every March from the former Norton motorcycle factory to Tanworth, the village was also the filming location for the fictional village of Kings Oak from the British television series Crossroads between 1970 and 1988. The parish includes Umberslade Hall, for six hundred years the home of the Archer family and later the industrialist George Frederic Muntz
30.
Malvern, Worcestershire
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Malvern is a spa town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. At the 2011 census it had a population of 29,626 and it includes the historic settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, as well as the former independent urban district of Malvern Link. Archaeological evidence suggests that Bronze Age people had settled in the area around 1000 BC, the town itself was founded in the 11th century when Benedictine monks established a priory at the foot of the highest peak of Malvern Hills. During the 19th century Malvern developed rapidly from a village to a sprawling conurbation owing to its popularity as a hydrotherapy spa based on its spring waters, a further major expansion was the result of the relocation of the Telecommunications Research Establishment to Malvern in 1942. QinetiQ, TREs successor company, remains the towns largest local employer, Malvern is the largest place in the parliamentary constituency of West Worcestershire and the district of Malvern Hills, being also the districts administrative seat. It lies adjacent to the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the populous civil parish has a town council, Malvern Town Council, based in Great Malvern. The name Malvern is derived from the ancient British or old Welsh moel-bryn, meaning Bare or Bald Hill and it has been known as Malferna, Malverne, and Much Malvern. The Wyche Cutting, a pass through the hills, was in use in times as part of the salt route from Droitwich to South Wales. A 19th-century discovery of two hundred metal money bars suggests that the area had been inhabited by the La Tène people around 250 BC. The story remains disputed, however, as Roman historian Tacitus implies a site closer to the river Severn, there is therefore no evidence that Roman presence ended the prehistoric settlement at British Camp. However, excavations at nearby Midsummer Hill fort, Bredon Hill and this may suggest that the British Camp was abandoned or destroyed around the same time. A pottery industry based on the Malverns left remains dating from the Late Bronze Age to the Norman Conquest, products were traded as far as South Wales, via the River Severn. The Longdon and other marshes at the foot of Malvern Chase were grazed by cattle, woodland management was considerable, providing fuel for the kilns. Although a Malvern priory existed before the Norman Conquest, it is the settlement of nearby Little Malvern, the site of another, smaller priory, that is mentioned in the Domesday Book. A motte-and-bailey castle built on the top tier of the earthworks of the British Camp just before the Norman Conquest was probably founded by the Saxon Earl Harold Godwinson of Hereford and it was destroyed by King Henry II in 1155. The town developed around its 11th-century priory, a Benedictine monastery, several slightly different histories explain the actual founding of the religious community. St Werstans oratory is thought to have located on the site of St Michaels Chapel which is believed to have stood on the site of Bello Sguardo. Bello Sguardo was built on the site of Hermitage Cottage, the cottage was demolished in 1825 and ecclesiastical carvings were found within it
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Bryanston School
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Bryanston is a member of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference and the Eton Group. It has a reputation as a liberal and artistic school using some ideas of the Dalton Plan, the school opened on 24 January 1928 with 23 pupils and seven members of staff. In 2004, the school had around 650 pupils and 80 teachers, during the mid-1930s, Bryanston School was the location of Anglo-German youth camps where the Hitler Youth and Boy Scouts tried to develop links. In 2005 the school was one of fifty of the leading independent schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel. In 2014 the school opened a new building, the Tom Wheare Music School, designed by Hopkins Architects. The 300-seat concert hall was named after conductor Sir Mark Elder, the interior of the building won a 2015 Wood Award. G. Jeffreys Thorold Coade Robson Fisher Rev. David Jones Bob Allan Tom Wheare Sarah Thomas — first female head of Bryanston, alumni of the school are known as Old Bryanstonians, there is an alumni organisation called the Bryanston Society. The Society exists to further the cause of Bryanston in the broadest possible sense and it aims to bring together the whole Bryanston family through social and sporting events. The school estate has Europes tallest London Plane tree, each year, the JACT Ancient Greek Summer School is held at Bryanston, the school has played host to many of the United Kingdoms classicists, both as teachers and pupils. The school hosts the annual Dorset Opera Festival, which combines amateur, operas are staged at the conclusion of a two-week summer school. Bryanston Reflections, Et nova et vetera, Angela Holdsworth
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St John's College, Cambridge
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St Johns College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort, in constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The aims of the college, as specified by its Statutes, are the promotion of education, religion, learning, the colleges alumni include the winners of ten Nobel Prizes, seven prime ministers and twelve archbishops of various countries, at least two princes, and three Saints. HRH Prince William was affiliated with St Johns while undertaking a course in 2014. St Johns College is also known for its choir, its members success in a wide variety of inter-collegiate sporting competitions. In 2011 the college celebrated its quincentenary, an event marked by a visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The college was founded on the site of the 13th-century Hospital of St John in Cambridge at the suggestion of Saint John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and chaplain to Lady Margaret Beaufort. However, Lady Margaret died without having mentioned the foundation of St Johns in her will, and it was largely the work of Fisher that ensured that the college was founded. He had to obtain the approval of King Henry VIII of England, the Pope through the intermediary Polydore Vergil, the college received its charter on 9 April 1511. In November 1512 the Court of Chancery allowed Lady Margarets executors to pay for the foundation of the college from her estates, when Lady Margarets executors took over they found most of the old Hospital buildings beyond repair, but repaired and incorporated the Chapel into the new college. A kitchen and hall were added, and a gate tower was constructed for the College Treasury. The doors were to be closed each day at dusk, sealing the monastic community from the outside world. Over the course of the five hundred years, the college expanded westwards towards the River Cam, and now has eleven courts. The first three courts are arranged in enfilade, St Johns College first admitted women in October 1981, when K. M. Wheeler was admitted to the fellowship, along with nine female graduate students. The first women undergraduates arrived a year later, St Johns distinctive Great Gate follows the standard contemporary pattern employed previously at Christs College and Queens College. The gatehouse is crenelated and adorned with the arms of the foundress Lady Margaret Beaufort, above these are displayed her ensigns, the Red Rose of Lancaster and Portcullis. The college arms are flanked by curious creatures known as yales, mythical beasts with elephants tails, antelopes bodies, goats heads, and swivelling horns. Above them is a tabernacle containing a figure of St John the Evangelist
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Tripos
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At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos is any of the undergraduate examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelors degree or the courses taken by an undergraduate to prepare. For example, an undergraduate studying mathematics is said to be reading for the Mathematical Tripos, in most traditional English universities, a student registers to study one field exclusively, rather than having majors or minors as in American universities or Scottish universities. In practice, however, most degrees may be fairly interdisciplinary in nature, the word has an obscure etymology, but may be traced to the three-legged stool candidates once used to sit on when taking oral examinations. An apocryphal legend says that students used to one leg of a stool in each of their three years of exams, receiving the whole stool at graduation. Another tradition holds that the name derives from the three brackets printed on the back of the voucher, initially, the only way to obtain an honours degree at Cambridge was the Mathematical Tripos examination. Although John Jebb proposed reforms in 1772, these were blocked by various problems, classed examinations in law were introduced in 1816 by James William Geldart, who was then Regius Professor of Civil Law. Although a classical tripos was created in 1822, it was open to those who already had high honours in mathematics or those who were the sons of peers. This restriction ended around 1850, and triposes in the moral sciences, the origin and evolution of the Cambridge Tripos can be found in William Clarks Academic Charisma and the Origin of the Research University. A tripos is divided into two parts, Part I, which is based, and Part II, which allows specialization within the students chosen field. Since a bachelors degree takes three years to complete, either Part I or Part II is two years, and the other one year. The details of this can vary from subject to subject, there is also an optional Part III offered in some subjects, such as the Mathematical Tripos, these are not required to complete a bachelors degree. The Engineering Tripos on the hand is divided into Parts IA, IB, IIA, and IIB, each corresponding to one academic year. Students are examined formally at the end of part and are awarded a degree classification for each part. The Part II classification is usually, but incorrectly, considered to be the classification for the overall degree. Most subjects are examined in all three years, for example, the Natural Sciences Tripos has examinations for Part IA, Part IB, Part II, the English and History Triposes have preliminary rather than full examinations at the end of the first year. Degree regulations state that, to be awarded a degree, a student must have passed two honours examinations - this could include a Part I and a Part II, two Part I exams, or a Part I and a Part IA. All students must complete at least 9 terms of residence - making it impossible for students to complete two 1 year tripos parts. This makes it easy for an undergraduate to switch out of a subject, so a one-year Part I must be followed by a two-year Part II, and usually vice versa
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Gowland Hopkins
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He also discovered the amino acid tryptophan, in 1901. He was President of the Royal Society from 1930 to 1935 and he then taught physiology and toxicology at Guys Hospital from 1894 to 1898. In 1898 he married Jessie Anne Stephens, they had two daughters, one of whom, Jacquetta Hawkes, was married to J. B. Priestley, Biochemistry was not, at that time, recognised as a separate branch of science. He earned a doctorate in physiology from the University of London in July 1902, in 1910 he became a Fellow of Trinity College, and an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College. In 1914 he was elected to the Chair of Biochemistry at Cambridge University and his Cambridge students included neurochemistry pioneer Judah Hirsch Quastel and pioneer embryologist Joseph Needham. Hopkins had for a time studied how cells obtain energy via a complex metabolic process of oxidation and reduction reactions. His study in 1907 with Sir Walter Morley Fletcher of the connection between lactic acid and muscle contraction was one of the achievements of his work on the biochemistry of the cell. He and Fletcher showed that oxygen depletion causes an accumulation of acid in the muscle. Their work paved the way for the discovery by Archibald Hill. This led him to suggest the existence in normal diets of tiny quantities of as yet unidentified substances that are essential for animal growth and these hypothetical substances he called accessory food factors, later renamed vitamins. It was this work that led his being awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology for Medicine, during World War I, Hopkins continued his work on the nutritional value of vitamins. His efforts were especially valuable in a time of food shortages and he agreed to study the nutritional value of margarine and found that it was, as suspected, inferior to butter because it lacked the vitamins A and D. As a result of his work, vitamin-enriched margarine was introduced in 1926, Hopkins is credited with the discovery and characterisation in 1921 of glutathione extracted from various animal tissues. At the time he proposed that the compound was a dipeptide of glutamic acid, the structure was controversial for many years but in 1929 he concluded that it was a tripeptide of glutamic acid, cysteine and glycine. This conclusion agreed with that from the independent work of Edward Calvin Kendall, during his life, in addition to the Nobel Prize, Hopkins was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1918 and the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1926. From 1930 -1935 he served as president of the Royal Society and he died on 16 May 1947 in Cambridge and is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with wife Lady Jessie Ann Hopkins. Thomas Chemical genealogy Frederick Gowland Hopkins
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Malcolm Dixon
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For the rugby league footballer of the 1960s and 70s for Great Britain, England, Yorkshire, and Featherstone Rovers, see Malcolm Mal Dixon Malcolm Dixon was a British biochemist. Dixon was born in Cambridge, UK to Allick Page Dixon and he received his PhD in 1925, for research supervised by Frederick Gowland Hopkins at the University of Cambridge. Dixons research investigated the purification of enzymes and the kinetics of enzyme-catalyzed reactions. He investigated xanthine oxidase, and thereby elucidated many aspects of the chemistry of dehydrogenases, Dixon was an expert on the theory and use of manometers. Dixon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1942 and he died in Cambridge in 1985
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Joseph Needham
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Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham CH FRS FBA was a British scientist, historian and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941, in 1992, the Queen conferred on him the Companionship of Honour, and the Royal Society noted he was the only living person to hold these three titles. Needham was the child of a London family. His father was a doctor, and his mother, Alicia Adelaïde, née Montgomery, was a composer from Oldcastle. Needham was educated at Oundle School before attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he received a BA in 1921, an Oxbridge MA in January 1925 and he had intended to study medicine but came under the influence of Frederick Hopkins, resulting in his switch to biochemistry. His three-volume work Chemical Embryology, published in 1931, includes a history of embryology from Egyptian times up to the early 19th century and his Terry Lecture of 1936 was published by Cambridge University Press in association with Yale University Press under the title of Order and Life. In 1939 he produced a work on morphogenesis that a Harvard reviewer claimed will go down in the history of science as Joseph Needhams magnum opus. Although his career as biochemist and an academic was well established, his career developed in unanticipated directions during, three Chinese scientists came to Cambridge for graduate study in 1937, Lu Gwei-djen, Wang Ying-lai and Shen Shih-Chang. Lu, daughter of a Nanjingese pharmacist, taught Needham Chinese, igniting his interest in Chinas ancient technological and he then pursued, and mastered, the study of Classical Chinese privately with Gustav Haloun. Under the Royal Societys direction, Needham was the director of the Sino-British Science Co-operation Office in Chongqing from 1942 to 1946, during this time he made several long journeys through war-torn China and many smaller ones, visiting scientific and educational establishments and obtaining for them much needed supplies. His longest trip in late 1943 ended in far west in Gansu at the caves in Dunhuang at the end of the Great Wall where the earliest dated printed book - a copy of the Diamond Sutra - was found. The other long trip reached Fuzhou on the east coast, returning across the Xiang River just two days before the Japanese blew up the bridge at Hengyang and cut off part of China. In 1944 he visited Yunnan in an attempt to reach the Burmese border, everywhere he went he purchased and was given old historical and scientific books which he shipped back to Britain through diplomatic channels. They were to form the foundation of his later research, on his return to Europe, he was asked by Julian Huxley to become the first head of the Natural Sciences Section of UNESCO in Paris, France. In fact it was Needham who insisted that science should be included in the organisations mandate at a planning meeting. He devoted his energy to the history of Chinese science until his retirement in 1990, in 1948, Needham proposed a project to the Cambridge University Press for a book on Science and Civilisation in China. Within weeks of being accepted, the project had grown to seven volumes and his initial collaborator was the historian Wang Ling, whom he had met in Lizhuang and obtained a position for at Trinity. The first years were devoted to compiling a list of every mechanical invention and abstract idea that had been made and conceived in China
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Peace Pledge Union
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The Peace Pledge Union is a British pacifist non-governmental organization. It is open to everyone who can sign the PPU pledge, I renounce war, I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war. Its members work for a world war and promote peaceful. 135,000 men responded and became members, the initial male-only aspect of the pledge was aimed at countering the idea that only women were involved in the peace movement. In 1936 membership was opened to women, and the newly founded Peace News was adopted as the PPUs weekly newspaper, in 1937 the No More War Movement formally merged with the PPU. George Lansbury, previously chair of the No More War Movement, became president of the PPU, in 1937 a group of clergy and laity led by Sheppard formed the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship as an Anglican complement to the non-sectarian PPU. The Union was associated with the Welsh group, Heddwchwyr Cymru, in March 1938, PPU George Lansbury launched the PPUs first manifesto and peace campaign. The campaign argued that the idea of a war to democracy was a contradiction in terms. A large part of the PPUs work involved providing for the victims of war and its members sponsored a house where 64 Basque children, refugees from the Spanish Civil War, were cared for. Like many in the 1930s, the PPU supported appeasement, believing that Nazi Germany would cease its aggression if the provisions of the Versailles Treaty were undone. It backed Neville Chamberlains policy at Munich in 1938, regarding Hitlers claims on the Sudetenland as legitimate, Peace News editor and PPU sponsor John Middleton Murry and his supporters in the group caused considerable controversy by arguing Germany should be given control of mainland Europe. In a PPU publication, Warmongers, Clive Bell said that Germany should be permitted to absorb France, Poland, the Low Countries and this position drew criticism from other PPU activists such as Vera Brittain and Andrew Stewart. At the time of the Munich crisis, several PPU sponsors tried to send five thousand pacifists to the Sudetenland as a non-violent presence, there was Fascist infiltration of the PPU and MI5 kept an eye on the PPUs small Fascist connections. After Dick Sheppards death in October 1937, George Orwell, always hostile to pacifism, lukowitz argues that, it is nonsense to charge the PPU with pro-Nazi sentiments. In 1938 the PPU opposed legislation for air-raid precautions and in 1939 campaigned against military conscription, initially, the Peace Pledge Union opposed the Second World War and continued to argue for a negotiated peace with the Nazis. In February 1940, the Daily Mail newspaper called for the PPU to be banned, following the fall of France, however, the PPU abandoned the call for peace negotiations. PPU members instead concentrated on such as supporting British conscientious objectors. This latter campaign attempted to supply food, under Red Cross supervision, throughout the war, Vera Brittain published a newsletter, Letters to Peace Lovers, criticizing the conduct of the war, including the bombing of civilian areas of Germany
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