Robin Campbell Allshire (born 19 May 1960) is a British academic who is Professor ofChromosome Biology[3] at University of Edinburgh and aWellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow.[4][1] His research group at theWellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology[5] focuses on the epigenetic mechanisms governing the assembly of specialised domains of chromatin and their transmission through cell division.[6]
Allshire grew up in the fishing village ofHowth, Co Dublin 1960–1978.[citation needed] His parents were Arthur Gordon Allshire (1925-2012) who was a Pharmacist and Freda Margaret (née Schmutz; 1933–2014).[7][8] He was awarded hisBachelor of Arts degree inGenetics byTrinity College Dublin, in 1981[citation needed] where he was motivated by the inspirational teaching of David McConnell and colleagues at the Dept of Genetics to undertake post-graduate studies.[9] He subsequently joined theMedical Research Council (MRC) Mammalian Genome Unit at theUniversity of Edinburgh where he obtained hisPhD in 1985[2] under the guidance of Chris Bostock andEdwin Southern investigating the use ofbovine papillomavirus as a chassis for mammalian artificial chromosome construction.[2]
In 1985 Allshire joinedNicholas Hastie's research group at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh (formerly MRC Clinical and Population Cytogentics Unit) as apostdoctoral researcher where he discovered that mammalian telomeres are composed of simple repetitive sequences similar to those of unicellular eukaryotes[10] and that telomere length in blood cells shorten with age and are further eroded in cancerous cells.[11] This work resulted from following the fate of fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) telomeres after introdroducing fission yeast chromosomes into mouse cell in collaboration with Peter Fantes.[12] In 1989 he took a position as an independent visiting scientist atCold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) for 18 months before joining the MRC Human Genetics Unit as a junior group leader. While at CSHL he decided to switch his focus to investigating chromosomal elements in the genetically tractable fission yeast.[13] At the MRC HGU, Edinburgh (1990 - 2002), and subsequently at the Wellome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh (2002–present), he discovered that genes are silenced when placed within fission yeast centromeres[14][15] and telomeres,[16] and then utilised this gene silencing to gain fundamental insights into the processes of chromosome segregation,[17][18][19] and heterochromatin[20][21][22][23] and kinetochore CENP-A chromatin[24][25][26][27][28][29] establishment[30][31] and maintenance.[32][33][34] He is particularly interested in the epigenetic mechanisms that allow the persistence of specialised chromatin domains through multiple cell divisions and meiosis.[35] He has investigated howRNA interference (RNAi) mediates heterochromatin formation[36][37][38] and shown that splicing factors contribute to heterochromatin integrity via siRNA generation and RNAi.[39][40] He has provided insight into how transcription and resulting non-coding RNA might influence the assembly of specialised CENP-A chromatin[41][42][43][44] and demonstrated that some acts of lncRNA transcription are responsive to environmental stimuli and regulate neighbouring genes by transcriptional interference.[45][46] Recently using fission yeast his team discovered an epigenetic mechanism that allows fungi to develop resistance to antifungal drugs without alterations to their DNA.[47] This finding is important for understanding how pathogenic fungi become resistant to the limited number of available antifungal agents in both clinical and agricultural arenas.
^Allshire, Robin C; Gosden, John R; Cross, Sally H; Cranston, Gwen; Rout, Derek; Sugawara, Neal; Szostak, Jack W; Fantes, Peter A; Hastie, Nicholas D (1988). "Telomeric repeat from T. Thermophila cross hybridizes with human telomeres".Nature.332 (6165):656–9.Bibcode:1988Natur.332..656A.doi:10.1038/332656a0.PMID2833706.S2CID4352376.
^Hastie, Nicholas D; Dempster, Maureen; Dunlop, Malcolm G; Thompson, Alastair M; Green, Daryll K; Allshire, Robin C (1990). "Telomere reduction in human colorectal carcinoma and with ageing".Nature.346 (6287):866–8.Bibcode:1990Natur.346..866H.doi:10.1038/346866a0.PMID2392154.S2CID4258451.
^Allshire, R. C; Cranston, G; Gosden, J. R; Maule, J. C; Hastie, N. D; Fantes, P. A (1987). "A fission yeast chromosome can replicate autonomously in mouse cells".Cell.50 (3):391–403.doi:10.1016/0092-8674(87)90493-4.PMID3475186.S2CID2193386.
^Pidoux, A. L; Uzawa, S; Perry, P. E; Cande, W. Z; Allshire, R. C (2000). "Live analysis of lagging chromosomes during anaphase and their effect on spindle elongation rate in fission yeast".Journal of Cell Science. 113 Pt 23 (23):4177–91.doi:10.1242/jcs.113.23.4177.PMID11069763.
^Bannister, Andrew J; Zegerman, Philip; Partridge, Janet F; Miska, Eric A; Thomas, Jean O; Allshire, Robin C; Kouzarides, Tony (2001). "Selective recognition of methylated lysine 9 on histone H3 by the HP1 chromo domain".Nature.410 (6824):120–4.Bibcode:2001Natur.410..120B.doi:10.1038/35065138.PMID11242054.S2CID4334447.
^Anon (2011)."Professor Robin Allshire FRS".royalsociety.org. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
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