Director of the Wellcome Trust elected Fellow of the Royal Society
20 May 2011
Sir Mark was appointed Director of the Wellcome Trust in 2003. Before joining the Trust he was Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Medicine at Imperial College London, where he led a research group focusing on the immunology and genetics of rheumatic diseases. He received a knighthood in the 2009 New Year Honours List for services to medical research.
Also elected as Fellows of the Royal Society were two Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellows, Professor Robin Campbell Allshire from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh, and Professor Doreen Cantrell from the University of Dundee.
Other Fellows who have been recipients of funding from the Wellcome Trust include Professor Alun Millward Davies (Cardiff University), Professor Janet Hemingway (Director, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine), Professor Fiona Margaret Powrie (University of Oxford), Dr Leonard Robert Stephens (The Babraham Institute), Professor Simon Tavaré (University of Cambridge), Professor Arthur David Milner (Durham University) and Professor Alan Frederick Cowman (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research).
Professor Gerhard Theodor Materlik CBE, Chief Executive of Diamond Light Source Ltd, was also elected. Diamond is the UK's national synchrotron science facility and is funded by the UK Government and the Wellcome Trust.
Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society said: "It is a pleasure to welcome this year's new Fellows to the Royal Society. They join the ranks of the UK and Commonwealth's leading scientists, counting themselves among early Fellows such as Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle and Charles Darwin. The Society aims to expand the frontiers of knowledge by championing the development and use of science, mathematics, engineering and medicine for the benefit of humanity and the good of the planet. It is the contribution of excellent individuals such as these which makes this possible."
