Jean Duthie Beggs

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

DSc DSC may refer to: Academia * Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) * District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India * Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine Educational institutions * Dalton State Col ...

(née Lancaster, born 16 April 1950) is a Scottish geneticist. She is the Royal Society Darwin Trust Professor in the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

Centre for Cell Biology at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

Biography

Beggs was born Jean Duthie Lancaster on 16 April 1950 to Jean Crawford (née Duthie) and William Renfrew Lancaster. She attended

Glasgow High School for Girls The High School of Glasgow is an independent, co-educational day school in Glasgow, Scotland. The original High School of Glasgow was founded as the choir school of Glasgow Cathedral in around 1124, and is the oldest school in Scotland, and t ...

. She graduated from the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

with a BSc (Hons) in

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

in 1971, and received her PhD from the University in 1974. From 1974-1977 she held a postdoctoral position in the Department of Molecular Biology at the

working with Professors

Kenneth Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byna ...

and

Noreen Murray Noreen Elizabeth, Lady Murray (; 26 February 1935 – 12 May 2011) was an English molecular geneticist who helped pioneer recombinant DNA technology (genetic engineering) by creating a series of bacteriophage lambda vectors into which gene ...

. Having received a Beit Memorial Fellowship for Medical Research, Beggs moved to the

Plant Breeding Institute The Plant Breeding Institute was an agricultural research organisation in Cambridge in the United Kingdom between 1912 and 1987. Founding The institute was established in 1912 as part of the School of Agriculture at the University of Cambridge. R ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, working there for 2 years. In 1979, she began work as a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

. In 1985, Beggs returned to the University of Edinburgh's Molecular Biology department at Edinburgh, where she was appointed Professor of Molecular Biology in 1999. Her research interests are in RNA splicing. In 1972 she married Dr Ian Beggs. They have two sons.

Awards and honours

She has been a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

since 1995 and was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1998. In 2003, she was awarded the Royal Society's

Gabor Medal The Gabor Medal is one of the medals awarded by the Royal Society for "acknowledged distinction of interdisciplinary work between the life sciences with other disciplines". The medal was created in 1989 to honor the memory of physicist Denni ...

"for her contributions to the isolation and manipulation of recombinant DNA molecules in a eukaryotic organism, adding a new dimension to molecular and cellular biology". She received a

in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to science. She was the Royal Society of Edinburgh Vice President for Life Sciences from 2009 to 2012. In 2016 she was awarded an honorary DSc by the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

. In 2018

RNA Society The RNA Society is a non-profit, international scientific society that serves to facilitate the dissemination of scientific results and concepts in ribonucleic acid (RNA) research. The society was founded in 1993 and currently consists of over 1 ...

Lifetime Achievement Award.

References

1950 births British geneticists Alumni of the University of Glasgow Academics of the University of Edinburgh Scottish women academics Female Fellows of the Royal Society Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Commanders of the Order of the British Empire {{UK-scientist-stub