Professor Allan Bradley

Allan is former Director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, where he holds the title of Director Emeritus. He leads the Mouse Genomics Team, which uses the mouse as a model system to investigate the function of individual gene.

He received his BA, MA and PhD in Genetics from University of Cambridge and his PhD studies in Martin Evans laboratory laid the foundation for making knockout mice.

Allan Bradley and the Mouse Genomics team. [Genome Research Limited]

In 1984 Allan Bradley and Liz Robertson demonstrated that embryonic stem (ES) cells could be transmitted through the germ line of mice and two years later reported that ES cells could be used to generate mice with mutations in endogenous genes. This work contributed to the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Martin Evans in 2007.

In 1987, Allan took up an appointment as an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Texas. He was appointed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 1993 and was promoted to full Professor in 1994. At The Baylor College of Medicine, his laboratory played a seminal role in developing the techniques, technology and tools for genetic manipulation in the mouse. As a result mice can now be generated with changes as subtle as an alteration in a single nucleotide or as massive as the deletion, duplication or inversion of millions of base pairs, a technology that has become known as chromosome engineering. Allan Bradley's laboratory have used ES cell technology extensively, generating and analysing many of the first generation of mouse knockouts as well as helping numerous other laboratories to utilize this technology. This work has provided key functional information on many genes with an emphasis on cancer, DNA repair and embryonic development.

In 2000, Allan returned to the United Kingdom as Director of the Sanger Centre, now called the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. He has established a new direction for the Institute - genetic analysis of gene function, which includes among other projects the largest systematic gene knockout project ever attempted in ES cells funded by the European Union (EUCOMM) and National Institutes of Health (KOMP).

In 2002 Allan Bradley was honoured by election to the Royal Society. Allan runs an active research group of students and fellows who continue to develop tools and technologies for new mouse genetics as well as to explore gene function on a large scale.

Selected Publications

• Mismatch repair genes identified using genetic screens in Blm-deficient embryonic stem cells.

  Guo G, Wang W and Bradley A

  Nature 2004;429;6994;891-5

  PUBMED: 15215866; DOI: 10.1038/nature02653

• Functional genetic analysis of mouse chromosome 11.

  Kile BT, Hentges KE, Clark AT, Nakamura H, Salinger AP, Liu B, Box N, Stockton DW, Johnson RL, Behringer RR, Bradley A and Justice MJ

  Nature 2003;425;6953;81-6

  PUBMED: 12955145; DOI: 10.1038/nature01865

• Embryonic lethality and radiation hypersensitivity mediated by Rad51 in mice lacking Brca2.

  Sharan SK, Morimatsu M, Albrecht U, Lim DS, Regel E, Dinh C, Sands A, Eichele G, Hasty P and Bradley A

  Nature 1997;386;6627;804-10

  PUBMED: 9126738; DOI: 10.1038/386804a0

• Chromosome engineering in mice.

  Ramírez-Solis R, Liu P and Bradley A

  Nature 1995;378;6558;720-4

  PUBMED: 7501018; DOI: 10.1038/378720a0

• Rescue of embryonic lethality in Mdm2-deficient mice by absence of p53.

  Jones SN, Roe AE, Donehower LA and Bradley A

  Nature 1995;378;6553;206-8

  PUBMED: 7477327; DOI: 10.1038/378206a0

• Mice deficient for Rb are nonviable and show defects in neurogenesis and haematopoiesis.

  Lee EY, Chang CY, Hu N, Wang YC, Lai CC, Herrup K, Lee WH and Bradley A

  Nature 1992;359;6393;288-94

  PUBMED: 1406932; DOI: 10.1038/359288a0

• Mice deficient for p53 are developmentally normal but susceptible to spontaneous tumours.

  Donehower LA, Harvey M, Slagle BL, McArthur MJ, Montgomery CA, Butel JS and Bradley A

  Nature 1992;356;6366;215-21

  PUBMED: 1552940; DOI: 10.1038/356215a0

• The Wnt-1 (int-1) proto-oncogene is required for development of a large region of the mouse brain.

  McMahon AP and Bradley A

  Cell 1990;62;6;1073-85

  PUBMED: 2205396

• A potential animal model for Lesch-Nyhan syndrome through introduction of HPRT mutations into mice.

  Kuehn MR, Bradley A, Robertson EJ and Evans MJ

  Nature 1987;326;6110;295-8

  PUBMED: 3029599; DOI: 10.1038/326295a0

• Formation of germ-line chimaeras from embryo-derived teratocarcinoma cell lines.

  Bradley A, Evans M, Kaufman MH and Robertson E

  Nature 1984;309;5965;255-6

  PUBMED: 6717601

Related links:

• History
• Mouse Genomics Group
• John Sulston
• Key personnel