Michael William Bruford (born 6 June 1963) is a

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

conservation biologist Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an int ...

and currently professor at

Cardiff University , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...

's School of Biosciences. His area of research spans from animal wildlife genetics to the management of captive populations and livestock breeds to animal biobanking. After earning his

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

from the

University of Portsmouth The University of Portsmouth is a public university in Portsmouth, England. It is one of only four universities in the South East England, South East of England rated as Gold in the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework. With approximately 28 ...

and his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_labe ...

, Bruford worked at the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained the London Zoo, and since 1931 Whipsnade Park. History On 29 ...

where he became Head of Conservation Genetics before joining Cardiff University as reader in 1999 and professor in 2001. In addition to his research activities at Cardiff University, he is also director of the

Frozen Ark The Frozen Ark is a charitable frozen zoo project created jointly by the Zoological Society of London, the Natural History Museum and University of Nottingham. The project aims to preserve the DNA and living cells of endangered species to retain t ...

project, which seeks to preserve threatened animal species by means of cryopreservation.

Education and career

Bruford was born to Ann and Colin Bruford in 1963. After graduating from

St Cyres Comprehensive School St Cyres School is an 11–18 mixed, English-medium, community secondary school and sixth form in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. It was established in 1958. Until June 2012, the school was split over two sites: the larger site at Penarth, ...

in 1981, he pursued and earned a

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

in biomolecular science from the

in 1984. He then joined the

for his PhD research under the supervision of

Terry Burke Terence Joseph Burke (born 1 February 1942) is a former member for the seat of Perth in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. He held the seat between 1968 and 1987. In 1974, with the Labor Party in Opposition, he was a member of the T ...

on minisatellite markers in the

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ge ...

of the domestic

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

. Bruford's PhD thesis, titled ''Hypervariable markers in the chicken genome'', was submitted in 1992. In 1990, he joined the

's conservation genetics group as a research associate, becoming its acting head in 1993 and finally its head in 1994. Bruford held the latter position until 1999, when he took on the position of a

reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

in the School of Biosciences at

. Two years later, in 2001, he became a professor at Cardiff University. He became co-chair of the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

Species Survival Commission The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natur ...

′s Conservation Genetics Specialist Group in 2014 (alongside Gernot Segelbacher). Initially a trustee, Bruford has been director of the

project since 2015; the same year he became co-director (to Terry Marsden) of the Sustainable Places Institute in Cardiff. In 2019 he became Dean for Environmental Sustainability at Cardiff University. Over his career, Bruford has also served as editor for several journals in

conservation biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an int ...

and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

; from 2012 to 2016, he was editor-in-chief for ''

Heredity Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic inform ...

''. He has been part of the IUCN Conservation Breeding Specialist Group since 1993.

Research topics

Trained as a molecular biologist, Michael Bruford established links to behavioural ecology and conservation biology early on in his work. One of his first publications together with Terry Burke and Nick Davies seeks to link insights from bird genetics to their mating and breeding behaviour in dunnocks. Since the early 1990s, Bruford has made contributions to conservation biology by exploring population genetics of wild, captive and domestic animals. Recently, he has also sought to advance the field of biobanking of animal DNA, tissue and germlines for conservation purposes in the United Kingdom and beyond. Aside from his role as director of the Frozen Ark, a charity which seeks to support animal

cryobank Cryo-preservation or cryo-conservation is a process where organisms, organelles, cells, tissues, extracellular matrix, organs, or any other biological constructs susceptible to damage caused by unregulated chemical kinetics are preserved by coo ...

s and develop best practise procedures, Bruford is currently

principal investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

in the

BBSRC Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific rese ...

-funded project "CryoArks", which aims at establishing a national UK cryobank network. Michael Bruford has received a number of awards for his work. In 2003, he was awarded the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London and in 2020 received the ZSL Marsh Award for Conservation Biology. The

Learned Society of Wales The Learned Society of Wales (Welsh: Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru) is a learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh nation ...

elected him as a fellow in 2010. From 2012 to 2016, he held a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. In 2020, he was elected to the Academia Europaea and in 2021 was appointed as an extraordinary professor at the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria ( af, Universiteit van Pretoria, nso, Yunibesithi ya Pretoria) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was ...

and received an A2-rating by

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

's National Research Foundation.

Publications

Bruford is (co-)author of more than 300 scientific publications in journals and edited volumes. Together with Giorgio Bertorelle, Heidi Hauffe, Annapaolo Rizzoli and Cristiano Vernesi, he edited the handbook ''Population Genetics for Animal Conservation'' (2009).

External links

Professor Mike Bruford
– Cardiff University, www.cardiff.ac.uk

References

Academia Europaea: Michael Bruford.
' Academia Europaea, www.ae-info.org, accessed 27 November 2020. Bertorelle, G., 2009. Population genetics for animal conservation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; New York. Burke, T., Davies, N.B., Bruford, M.W., Hatchwell, B.J., 1989. Parental care and mating behaviour of polyandrous dunnocks Prunella modularis related to paternity by DNA fingerprinting. ''Nature'' 338, 249–251. https://doi.org/10.1038/338249a0. Michael William Bruford:
Hypervariable markers in the chicken genome.
' (PDF, 38.2 MB) PhD Thesis, University of Leicester, 1992. Michael William Bruford:
Curriculum Vitae.
' (PDF) October 2012, www.nwipb.cas.cn. Michael Bruford:
Biography.
' www.cardiff.ac.uk, accessed 12 November 2019.
About – CryoArks.
' www.cryoarks.org, accessed 12 November 2019.
The Frozen Ark – What We Do.
' www.frozenark.org, accessed 12 November 2019.
Prestigious awards honour the stars of conservation science.
' www.zsl.org, accessed 3 November 2020.
Prof Michael Bruford receives A2-rating from NRF.
' www.up.ac.za, accessed 16 November 2021. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bruford, Michael W. 1963 births Living people Welsh geneticists British conservationists Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales