Brian Charlesworth FRSE, FRS | |
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| Born | Brian Charlesworth (1945-04-29)29 April 1945 (age 79)[4] |
| Citizenship | British |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 daughter |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Evolutionary biology |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Genetic variation in viability in Drosophila melanogaster (1968) |
| Doctoral students | Michael R. Rose |
| Other notable students | Gilean McVean (postdoc)[2][3] |
Brian CharlesworthFRS FRSE (born 29 April 1945)[4] is a Britishevolutionary biologist at theUniversity of Edinburgh,[5] and editor ofBiology Letters.Since 1997, he has beenRoyal Society Research Professor at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IEB) in Edinburgh.[6][7][8][9] He has been married since 1967 to the British evolutionary biologistDeborah Charlesworth.
Charlesworth gained aBachelor of Arts degree inBiological Sciences fromQueens' College, Cambridge,[4] followed by aPhD ingenetics in 1969 for research intogenetic variation inviability in the fruit flyDrosophila melanogaster.[10]
Following his PhD, Charlesworth didpostdoctoral research at theUniversity of Chicago,University of Liverpool 1971–1974 and theUniversity of Sussex underJohn Maynard Smith[11][12] 1974–82. He returned to Chicago, to be professor of ecology and evolution from 1985 to 1997 after which he moved to Edinburgh.[5]
Charlesworth has worked extensively on understanding sequence evolution,[13] using thefruit fly as a model species, and has also contributed theoretical work on aging, the evolution of recombination and the evolution ofsex chromosomes.[14]
In April 2010, the journalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B was dedicated to honour Brian's contribution to the field ofpopulation genetics.[15]
Charlesworth was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1991,[16] and won itsDarwin Medal in 2000. He won the 2006Frink Medal, of theZoological Society of London and in 2010 was awarded theDarwin-Wallace Medal of theLinnean Society. His nomination for the Royal Society reads:
Distinguished for his theoretical and experimental studies of population genetics and evolutionary biology. He extended thetheory of selection in age-structured populations which provides the genetical foundation for the study of the evolution of life-history patterns and ageing, and demonstrated experimentally genetic variation in suchtraits. He made major contributions to the theory of the related topics of selection for the rate ofgenetic recombination, the evolution of complexes oftightly linked genes and the evolution of separate sexes andoutbreeding, and showed experimentally that recombination rates could be changed by selection. He has developed a theory for thepopulation dynamics oftransposable genetic elements which provide standard models for the analysis and interpretation of data on transposable element frequencies.[16]
In 2015, theGenetics Society of America awarded Charlesworth itsThomas Hunt Morgan Medal. This award is give to recognize "lifetime achievement in the field of genetics. It recognizes the full body of work of an exceptional geneticist," according to theThomas Hunt Morgan Medal webpage.
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