Professor Keith Gull (born 29 May 1948) is a

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

and Professor of Molecular microbiology at the

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

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. He was the principal of

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

from 1 October 2009 to 30 September 2018, succeeding

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

Education

Gull was educated at Eston Grammar School and King's College London where he was awarded a first class

Bachelor of Science 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 o ...

degree in 1969 followed by a PhD in 1973.

Career and research

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

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

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

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

where he spent the 1990s involved with the development of the School of Biological Sciences as Head of Biochemistry and Research Dean. He moved to Oxford in 2002. He was Chairman of the

Biochemical Society The Biochemical Society is a learned society in the United Kingdom in the field of biochemistry, including all the cellular and molecular biosciences. Structure It currently has around 7000 members, two-thirds in the UK. It is affiliated with th ...

(1999–2002), and is a trustee of

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

. According to

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and

Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...

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

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

'' and ''

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

''. More recently, the Gull laboratory has worked on '' Leishmania''. After nine years as Principal Professor of

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

Kathy Willis Katherine Jane Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown, (born 16 January 1964) is a British biologist, academic and life peer, who studies the relationship between long-term ecosystem dynamics and environmental change. She is Professor of Biodive ...

Controversy

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

Awards and honours

Among numerous prizes, fellowships, and other awards, Keith Gull was awarded the

Marjory Stephenson Prize The Marjory Stephenson Prize is the principal prize of the Microbiology Society, awarded for an outstanding contribution of current importance in microbiology. Marjory Stephenson was the second president of the Microbiology Society (1947 - 1949) a ...

from the

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

(1996), was elected Fellow of the

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

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

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

in the 2004

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

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

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

from the

. His certificate of election to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

reads: Gull was elected a member of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) in 2010.

References

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