John Frederick William Birney (known as Ewan Birney) (born 6 December 1972) is Executive Director of the

European Molecular Biology Laboratory The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 29 member states, two prospect member states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in ...

(EMBL). He also serves as non-executive director of

Genomics England Genomics England is a company wholly owned by the United Kingdom's Department of Health and Social Care. Established in 2013, it was tasked with delivering the 100,000 Genomes Project, a pioneering initiative that sequenced 100,000 genomes fro ...

, chair of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and

honorary professor Honorary titles (professor, president, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as ...

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. Birney has made significant contributions to

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, ...

, through his development of innovative

and

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...

tools. He previously served as an associate faculty member at the

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute The Wellcome Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a non-profit organisation, non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is l ...

Education

Birney was privately educated at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

as an Oppidan Scholar. Before going to University, Birney completed a

gap year A gap year, also known as a sabbatical year, is a period of time when students take a break from their studies, usually after completing high school or before beginning graduate school. During this time, students engage in a variety of educatio ...

internship at

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, botany, genomics, and quantitative biology. It is located in Laurel Hollow, New York, in Nassau County, on ...

supervised by

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biology, molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper in ''Nature (journal), Nature'' proposing the Nucleic acid ...

and Adrian Krainer. Birney completed his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree 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, a ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in 1996, where he was an undergraduate student at

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

. He completed his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

at the University of Cambridge while based at the

Sanger Institute The Wellcome Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a non-profit organisation, non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is l ...

, and supervised by Richard Durbin while he was a postgraduate student at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

. His doctoral research used dynamic programming,

finite-state machine A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: ''automata''), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number o ...

s and

probabilistic automaton In mathematics and computer science, the probabilistic automaton (PA) is a generalization of the nondeterministic finite automaton; it includes the probability of a given transition into the transition function, turning it into a transition matr ...

s for

sequence alignment In bioinformatics, a sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence of functional, structural biology, structural, or evolutionary relationships between ...

. While he was a student he completed

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and g ...

s in the office of the

Mayor of Baltimore The mayor of Baltimore is the head of the executive branch of the government of the City of Baltimore, Maryland. The Mayor has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills, ordinances, or resolutions passed by th ...

and also in

financial services Financial services are service (economics), economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of tertiary sector of the economy, service sector activities, especially as concerns finan ...

valuation of options In finance, a price (premium) is paid or received for purchasing or selling options. The calculation of this premium will require sophisticated mathematics. Premium components This price can be split into two components: intrinsic value, and ...

for the

Swiss Bank Corporation Swiss Bank Corporation (French language, French: ''Société de banque suisse''; German language, German: ''Schweizerischer Bankverein'') was a Swiss Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. Prio ...

Research and career

From 2000 to 2003, Birney organised a scientific wager and

sweepstake In the United States, a sweepstake is a type of contest where a prize or prizes may be awarded to a winner or winners. Sweepstakes began as a form of lottery that were tied to products sold. In response, the FCC and FTC refined U.S. broadcast ...

known as GeneSweep, for the genomics community, taking bets on estimates of the total number of genes (and

noncoding DNA Non-coding DNA (ncDNA) sequences are components of an organism's DNA that do not encode protein sequences. Some non-coding DNA is transcribed into functional non-coding RNA molecules (e.g. transfer RNA, microRNA, piRNA, ribosomal RNA, and regu ...

) in the human genome. Birney is one of the founders of the Ensembl genome browser and other databases, and has played a role in the sequencing of the

Human Genome The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as the DNA within each of the 23 distinct chromosomes in the cell nucleus. A small DNA molecule is found within individual Mitochondrial DNA, mitochondria. These ar ...

in 2000 and the analysis of genome function in the

ENCODE The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) is a public research project which aims "to build a comprehensive parts list of functional elements in the human genome." ENCODE also supports further biomedical research by "generating community resourc ...

project. He has played a role in annotating the genome sequences of the human, mouse, chicken and several other organisms. His research group focuses on

computational genomics Computational genomics refers to the use of computational and statistical analysis to decipher biology from genome sequences and related data, including both DNA and RNA sequence as well as other "post-genomic" data (i.e., experimental data obtained ...

and inter-individual differences in human and other

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, ...

s. Birney is known for his role in the

consortium. Prior to the ENCODE project, Birney has been involved in creation of a number of widely used

and

tools, either directly (PairWise, GeneWise, GenomeWise,), or in collaboration with students and postdocs, e.g. Exonerate (with Guy Slater), Enredo (Javier Herrero), Pecan (Benedict Paten), the Velvet assembler (Daniel Zerbino ) and CRAM (Markus Hsi-Yang Fritz, Rasko Leinonen and Vadim Zalunin). Birney has also contributed to several other projects including the Pfam database, InterPro, BioPerl, and HMMER and

Ensembl genome database project Ensembl genome database project is a scientific project at the European Bioinformatics Institute, which provides a centralized resource for geneticists, molecular biologists and other researchers studying the genomes of our own species and other v ...

. , Birney's research group focuses on

genomic Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, ...

algorithms and studying inter individual differences, in both human and other species. He has supervised several PhD students and

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

s that have worked in his laboratory. His research has been funded by the

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council 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 science, scient ...

(BBSRC), Medical Research Council (MRC) the

National Human Genome Research Institute The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is an institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland. NHGRI began as the Office of Human Genome Research in The Office of the Director in 1988. This Office transi ...

(NHGRI), the

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

and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. Birney serves as a consultant to Oxford Nanopore Technologies and on the scientific advisory board of the

Earlham Institute Earlham Institute (EI, formerly The Genome Analysis Centre) is a life science research institute located at the Norwich Research Park (NRP), Norwich, England. EI's research is focused on exploring living systems by applying computational science ...

(formerly TGAC) in Norwich. Since 2022, he has served on the governing board at

. He has also served on the boards of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC),

German Cancer Research Center The German Cancer Research Center (known as the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum or simply DKFZ in German language, German) is a national cancer research center based in Heidelberg, Germany. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German ...

(DKFZ), The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), Institute Pasteur and

Riken is a national scientific research institute in Japan. Founded in 1917, it now has about 3,000 scientists on seven campuses across Japan, including the main site at Wakō, Saitama, Wakō, Saitama Prefecture, on the outskirts of Tokyo. Riken is a ...

institute.

Awards and honours

In 2002, Birney was named as one of the

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

TR100 top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2003, he gave the inaugural Francis Crick Lecture at 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 ...

: In 2005, he was awarded the

Overton Prize The ISCB Overton Prize is a computational biology prize awarded annually for outstanding accomplishment by a scientist in the early to mid stage of his or her career. Laureates have made significant contribution to the field of computational biolog ...

by the

International Society for Computational Biology The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a scholarly society for researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics. The society was founded in 1997 to provide a stable financial home for the Intelligent Systems for Mo ...

(ISCB) for his advocacy of

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

bioinformatics, contributions to the BioPerl community and leadership of the Ensembl genome annotation project. In 2005 Birney was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award in Bioinformatics: Birney was awarded membership of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 2,100 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) in 2012 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: His certificate of election and candidature reads: Birney has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science (DSc) degrees: in 2014 from

Brunel University London Brunel University of London (BUL) is a Public university, public Research universities, research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It is named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a Victorian era, Victorian engineer and pione ...

and in 2021 from

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. In 2015, Birney was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci). Birney was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the

2019 New Year Honours The 2019 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...

Personal life

Birney married in 2003 and has two children.

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Birney, Ewan Living people Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization People educated at Eton College Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge British bioinformaticians Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Overton Prize winners Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Wellcome Trust 1972 births Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Human Genome Project scientists