Joseph Frank Sambrook (1 March 1939 – 14 June 2019) was a British molecular biologist known for his studies of

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

oncovirus An oncovirus or oncogenic virus is a virus that can cause cancer. This term originated from studies of acutely transforming retroviruses in the 1950–60s, when the term ''oncornaviruses'' was used to denote their RNA virus origin. With the let ...

es and the

molecular biology Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

of normal and

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

ous cells.

Education and early career

Sambrook was educated at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

(BSc (hons) 1962) and obtained 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

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

in 1966. He did postdoctoral research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (1966–67) and the

Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among th ...

(1967–69). In 1969 he was hired by

James D. Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper in ''Nature'' proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Wats ...

to work at the

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 ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. Watson has been reported to say this was the best hiring decision he ever made. Joe was responsible for creating a combative creative environment at CSHL that fomented discovery. Subsequently, he worked at the

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern or UTSW) is a public academic health science center in Dallas, Texas. With approximately 23,000 employees, more than 3,000 full-time faculty, and nearly 4 million outpatient ...

(

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

Achievements

Sambrook is best known for his studies on DNA tumor viruses and the molecular biology of normal and neoplastic cells. His Tumour Virus Group at Cold Spring Harbor identified and mapped all of the major genes of

adenovirus Adenoviruses (members of the family ''Adenoviridae'') are medium-sized (90–100 nm), nonenveloped (without an outer lipid bilayer) viruses with an icosahedral nucleocapsid containing a double-stranded DNA genome. Their name derives from t ...

es and

SV40 SV40 is an abbreviation for simian vacuolating virus 40 or simian virus 40, a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans. Like other polyomaviruses, SV40 is a DNA virus that is found to cause tumors in humans and animals, but most ofte ...

, determined their transcriptional control in infected and transformed cells, and elucidated the mechanism of integration of these viruses into the genome of the host cell. He has also made important contributions to the understanding of

intracellular traffic Intracellular transport is the movement of vesicles and substances within a cell. Intracellular transport is required for maintaining homeostasis within the cell by responding to physiological signals. Proteins synthesized in the cytosol are dist ...

and

protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein, after Protein biosynthesis, synthesis by a ribosome as a linear chain of Amino acid, amino acids, changes from an unstable random coil into a more ordered protein tertiary structure, t ...

and is an influential leader in the field of the

molecular genetics of human cancer Oncogenomics is a sub-field of genomics that characterizes cancer-associated genes. It focuses on genomic, epigenomic and transcript alterations in cancer. Cancer is a genetic disease caused by accumulation of DNA mutations and epigenetic altera ...

. Sambrook is a former director of research at the

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, also known as the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute and commonly abbreviated as Peter Mac, is an Australian oncology research institute, cancer treatment and professional oncologist training centre located in ...

in Melbourne. He was elected a

Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science The Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science is made up of about 500 Australian scientists. Scientists judged by their peers to have made an exceptional contribution to knowledge in their field may be elected to Fellowship of the Academy ...

in 2000. and is a

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

. He was the founder and director of the Kathleen Cunningham Consortium for research into

familial breast cancer Familial may refer to: * ''Familial'' (album), a 2010 studio album by Phil Selway *Family, a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence *Family (biology), one of the eight major taxonomic ranks, classified between orde ...

, KConFab, that was established in 1995. Sambrook has published four editions of the best-selling, highly influential laboratory manual ''Molecular Cloning'', the third in 2001 with David Russell and the fourth in 2012 with Michael R. Green. He is also co-editor of ''Inspiring Science: Jim Watson and the Age of DNA'' and ''Life Illuminated: Selected Papers from Cold Spring Harbor Volume 2, 1972–1994''. All three books were published by

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press was founded in 1933 to aid in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's purpose of furthering the advance and spread of scientific knowledge. CSHL Press publishes monographs, technical manuals, handbooks, review volume ...

. In 2009 he was awarded the "Victorian Government Leadership and Innovation Award".

Personal life

Sambrook had three children from his first marriage to Thelma, and a daughter with his second wife, Professor Mary-Jane Gething.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sambrook, Joseph 1939 births 2019 deaths British virologists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Scientists from Liverpool University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center faculty