Fellow

Professor Doug Higgs is the Director of the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit and Professor of Haematology at the University of Oxford. He has taken over the mantle of his mentor David Weatherall as the world leader in research into the structure, regulation and molecular pathology of the human a globin genes. His research team in Oxford has characterised many of the mutations that underly the a thalassaemias and have characterised the a thalassaemias associated with mental retardation and defined their molecular basis. In particular he has discovered the ATX gene on the X chromosome and its underlying mutations that are a cause of the combination of a thalassaemia and mental retardation.