Benjamin Blencowe FRS FRSC
Born	Benjamin Joseph Blencowe
Nationality	British and Canadian
Alma mater	Imperial College London (BSc) University of London (PhD)
Awards	John Polanyi Award (2011)
Scientific career
Fields	Gene regulation RNA processing Alternative splicing Functional genomics[1]
Institutions	Imperial College London European Molecular Biology Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Toronto
Thesis	The application of antisense technology to the study of mammalian pre-mRNA splicing factors. (1991)
Academic advisors	Angus Lamond Phillip Allen Sharp
Website	http://sites.utoronto.ca/intron/index.html

Benjamin Joseph BlencoweFRS FRSC^[2][3] is a British and Canadian molecular biologist, currently appointed as Professor and Banbury Chair in Medical Research at theUniversity of Toronto. He also serves as Director of the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Sequencing Centre.^[4][1] He teaches in the Department of Molecular Genetics and his lab is part of theDonnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.

Blencowe studied microbiology andmolecular biology atImperial College London, where he received an BSc (with first class honours) in 1988. He undertook graduate research at theEuropean Molecular Biology Laboratory, as an external student of theUniversity of London, earning hisPhD in 1991.

After receiving his PhD, Blencowe joined the Center of Cancer Research (renamedKoch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research) at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology as a Human Frontier Science Program Long Term Fellow in 1992. He was appointed Assistant Professor atUniversity of Toronto in 1998 and promoted to full Professor in 2006.

Blencowe’s research focuses on fundamental questions relating toRNA biology.^[1] His research group has made pioneering contributions to the development and application of high-throughput methods for studyingRNA processing and RNA-RNA interactions. This research has contributed global-scale insights into the complexity, evolution, regulation and function ofalternative splicing, including the discovery of splicing networks that controlstem cellpluripotency andneurogenesis. His most recent research led to the discovery of a program of alternative splicing that is commonly disrupted in neurological disorders, work that has opened the door to a new therapeutic strategy forautism.

• Pan Q, Shai O, Misquitta C, Zhang W, Saltzman AL, Mohammad N, Babak T, Siu H, Hughes TR, Morris QD, Frey BJ, Blencowe BJ (2004)."Revealing global regulatory features of mammalian alternative splicing using a quantitative microarray platform".Mol. Cell.16 (6):929–41.doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2004.12.004.PMID 15610736.
• Blencowe BJ (2006)."Alternative splicing: new insights from global analyses".Cell.126 (1):37–47.doi:10.1016/j.cell.2006.06.023.PMID 16839875.S2CID 7606539.
• Pan Q, Shai O, Lee LJ, Frey BJ, Blencowe BJ (2008). "Deep surveying of alternative splicing complexity in the human transcriptome by high-throughput sequencing".Nat. Genet.40 (12):1413–5.doi:10.1038/ng.259.PMID 18978789.S2CID 9228930.
• Calarco JA, Superina S, O'Hanlon D, Gabut M, Raj B, Pan Q, Skalska U, Clarke L, Gelinas D, van der Kooy D, Zhen M, Ciruna B, Blencowe BJ (2009)."Regulation of vertebrate nervous system alternative splicing and development by an SR-related protein".Cell.138 (5):898–910.doi:10.1016/j.cell.2009.06.012.PMID 19737518.S2CID 18341158.
• Barash Y, Calarco JA, Gao W, Pan Q, Wang X, Shai O, Blencowe BJ, Frey BJ (2010). "Deciphering the splicing code".Nature.465 (7294):53–9.Bibcode:2010Natur.465...53B.doi:10.1038/nature09000.PMID 20445623.S2CID 2398858.
• Gabut M, Samavarchi-Tehrani P, Wang X, Slobodeniuc V, O'Hanlon D, Sung HK, Alvarez M, Talukder S, Pan Q, Mazzoni EO, Nedelec S, Wichterle H, Woltjen K, Hughes TR, Zandstra PW, Nagy A, Wrana JL, Blencowe BJ (2011)."An alternative splicing switch regulates embryonic stem cell pluripotency and reprogramming".Cell.147 (1):132–46.doi:10.1016/j.cell.2011.08.023.PMID 21924763.S2CID 4978953.
• Barbosa-Morais NL, Irimia M, Pan Q, Xiong HY, Gueroussov S, Lee LJ, Slobodeniuc V, Kutter C, Watt S, Colak R, Kim T, Misquitta-Ali CM, Wilson MD, Kim PM, Odom DT, Frey BJ, Blencowe BJ (2012). "The evolutionary landscape of alternative splicing in vertebrate species".Science.338 (6114):1587–93.Bibcode:2012Sci...338.1587B.doi:10.1126/science.1230612.PMID 23258890.S2CID 37453436.
• Han H, Irimia M, Ross PJ, Sung HK, Alipanahi B, David L, Golipour A, Gabut M, Michael IP, Nachman EN, Wang E, Trcka D, Thompson T, O'Hanlon D, Slobodeniuc V, Barbosa-Morais NL, Burge CB, Moffat J, Frey BJ, Nagy A, Ellis J, Wrana JL, Blencowe BJ (2013)."MBNL proteins repress ES-cell-specific alternative splicing and reprogramming".Nature.498 (7453):241–5.Bibcode:2013Natur.498..241H.doi:10.1038/nature12270.PMC 3933998.PMID 23739326.
• Irimia M, Weatheritt RJ, Ellis JD, Parikshak NN, Gonatopoulos-Pournatzis T, Babor M, Quesnel-Vallières M, Tapial J, Raj B, O'Hanlon D, Barrios-Rodiles M, Sternberg MJ, Cordes SP, Roth FP, Wrana JL, Geschwind DH, Blencowe BJ (2014)."A highly conserved program of neuronal microexons is misregulated in autistic brains".Cell.159 (7):1511–23.doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.11.035.PMC 4390143.PMID 25525873.
• Gueroussov S, Weatheritt RJ, O'Hanlon D, Lin ZY, Narula A, Gingras AC, Blencowe BJ (2017)."Regulatory Expansion in Mammals of Multivalent hnRNP Assemblies that Globally Control Alternative Splicing".Cell.170 (2): 324–339.e23.doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.06.037.PMID 28709000.

Blencowe received the Premier of Ontario Research Excellence Award in 1999 and the Canadian Society of Molecular Biosciences Senior Investigator Award in 2011.^[5] He was a recipient of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada John C. Polanyi Award in 2011 for his contributions to the understanding of the RNA splicing code.^[6] Blencowe was electedFellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) in 2017,^[3] andFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2019.^[2]

• Living people
• Canadian biologists
• Fellows of the Royal Society
• Academic staff of the University of Toronto
• Canadian fellows of the Royal Society

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