Professor Chris Ponting FMedSci
Chair, Medical Bioinformatics
University of Edinburgh
Elected Fellow 2012
computational genomics, disease genomics, control of gene expression, evolution, long noncoding RNAs, myalgic encephalomyelitis
Chris Ponting is Deputy Director at MRC Functional Genomics Unit at the University of Oxford. He has both discovered and extended a number of protein domain families and he has provided leadership in international genome sequencing projects. These include both the human and mouse. His studies led to a reconsideration of the extent and importance of transcribed noncoding DNA in the human genome. In the last ten years his observations have enhanced our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer’s disease, microcephaly, Aicardi Goutières Syndrome, retinitis pigmentosa, obesity, intellectual disability and schizophrenia.