Philip Ingham

Ingham was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby[http://www.merchanttaylors.com/merchant-taylors-connected/old-boy-philip-ingham-receives-the-prestigious-waddington-medal.html › Alumni Career Profiles › Philip Ingham (1973 Leaver) – Professor of Developmental Biology] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151121214035/http://www.merchanttaylors.com/merchant-taylors-connected/old-boy-philip-ingham-receives-the-prestigious-waddington-medal.html |date=21 November 2015 }} near Liverpool and then at Queens' College, Cambridge,{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} where after initially reading Philosophy and Theology he graduated in Genetics. He gained his Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Sussex under the supervision of J Robert S WhittleList of University of Sussex alumni – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia before moving to the Laboratoire de Génétique Moleculaire des Eukaryotes in Strasbourg, France, as a Royal Society European Exchange Programme fellow. He returned to the UK in 1982, joining the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF, now known as Cancer Research UK) as a post-doctoral research fellow in the laboratory of David Ish-Horowicz. After a brief spell as a Research Scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge,{{Cite web|url=https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/about-lmb/lmb-alumni/alumni/|title = LMB Alumni List}} he re-joined the ICRF as a staff scientist, remaining there for ten years before moving to the University of Sheffield, where he established the MRC Centre for Developmental and Biomedical Genetics.[http://www.bateson.group.shef.ac.uk/about-us/our-history/ Our History | The Bateson Centre] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20140608090312/http://www.bateson.group.shef.ac.uk/about-us/our-history/ |date=8 June 2014 }} He was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 1995,{{cite journal | pmc = 394391 | page=3288 | volume=14 | issue=13 | journal=EMBO J | title=EMBO members elected 1995| year=1995 | doi=10.1002/j.1460-2075.1995.tb07332.x }} a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2001 and Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002.{{Cite web|url=http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/21247/title/2002-Royal-Society-Fellows/|title = 2002 Royal Society Fellows}} In 2005, he became the second recipient of the Medal of the Genetics Society of Great Britain[http://www.genetics.org.uk/Prizes/GeneticsSocietyMedal2005.aspx Genetics Society Website > Prizes > Genetics Society Medal 2005] and in 2007 was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He has served on numerous international Scientific Advisory Boards and funding committees and was President of the International Society of Developmental Biologists from 2013-2017. In 2014 he was awarded the Waddington Medal by the British Society for Developmental Biology.[https://archive.today/20140615104213/http://dev.biologists.org/content/141/12/2363.fulll An interview with Phil Ingham] He has lived and worked in Singapore since 2005.

As a graduate student, Ingham isolated a novel homoeotic mutation in Drosophila, which he named trithorax (trx).{{cite journal |author= Ingham, Philip |author2= Robert Whittle |name-list-style= amp |title= Trithorax: a new homoeotic mutation of Drosophila melanogaster causing transformations of abdominal and thoracic imaginal segments |journal= Molecular and General Genetics |volume= 179 |issue= 3 |pages= 607–614 |year= 1980 |doi=10.1007/bf00271751|s2cid= 7514185 }} Using genetic mosaic analysis, he showed that the trx gene is required for the maintenance of the determined state of cells,{{cite journal |author= Ingham, PW |title= A clonal analysis of the requirement for the trithorax gene in the diversification of segments in Drosophila |journal= Journal of Embryology and Experimental Morphology |volume= 89 |pages= 349–65 |year=1985 |pmid= 4093752 }} presaging the current understanding of the Trithorax-group proteins as key epigenetic regulators throughout the animal kingdom. Subsequently, he pioneered the molecular analysis of the process of segmentation in the Drosophila embryo, through the simultaneous analysis the expression of patterns of pair rule genes using the technique of in situ hybridisation.{{cite journal |author= Howard, K |author2= Ingham, P |name-list-style= amp |title= Regulatory interactions between the segmentation genes fushi tarazu, hairy, and engrailed in the Drosophila blastoderm |journal= Cell |volume= 44 |issue= 6 |pages= 949–957 |year=1986 |doi=10.1016/0092-8674(86)90018-8|pmid= 3955654 |s2cid= 28770534 }} These studies led to his interest in what is now known as the Hedgehog signalling pathway; Ingham's genetic studies identified the core components of this pathway{{cite journal |author= Forbes, AJ |author2= Nakano, Y |author3= Taylor, AM |author4= Ingham, PW |name-list-style= amp |title= Genetic analysis of hedgehog signalling in the Drosophila embryo |journal= Development |volume= 119 |pages= 115–24 |year= 1993 |doi= 10.1242/dev.119.Supplement.115 |pmid= 8049467 }} and in particular the role of the Patched protein as the receptor for the Hedgehog ligand.{{cite journal |author= Ingham, PW |author2= Taylor, AM |author3= Nakano, Y |name-list-style= amp |title= Role of the Drosophila patched gene in positional signalling |journal= Nature|volume= 353 |issue= 6340 |pages= 184–7 |pmid= 1653906 |year= 1991 |doi= 10.1038/353184a0 |bibcode= 1991Natur.353..184I |s2cid= 4361236 }} In 1993, in collaboration with Andy McMahon and Cliff Tabin, Ingham's research group discovered the vertebrate homologues of the Drosophila hedgehog gene, including Sonic hedgehog.[https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/11/science/biologists-find-key-genes-that-shape-patterning-of-embryos.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Biologists Find Key Genes That Shape Patterning of Embryos – New York Times] This finding set in train a surge of interest in this pathway, leading amongst other things, to the recognition of its role in a number of human cancers and to the development of a novel anti-cancer drug that specifically targets the pathway.[http://pinterest.com/pin/32580797276082695/ Pin by Cancer Research UK on Skin Cancer | Pinterest]

Ingham was in the vanguard of researchers to adopt the zebrafish, Danio rerio, as a model for the analysis of vertebrate development and more recently for the study of processes related to human diseases.

Ingham has authored or co-authored over 180 peer-reviewed scientific primary research papers and review articles. Notable amongst the latter are his 1988 review of the Molecular Genetics of embryonic Pattern formation in Drosophila{{cite journal |author= Ingham PW |title= The molecular genetics of embryonic pattern formation in Drosophila |journal= Nature |volume=335 |issue= 6185 |pages=25–34 |year= 1988 |doi=10.1038/335025a0|pmid= 2901040 |bibcode= 1988Natur.335...25I |s2cid= 4311200 }} and his 2001 review, co-authored with Andrew McMahon, on the Principles and Paradigms of Hedgehog signalling.{{cite journal |vauthors= Ingham PW, McMahon AP |title= Hedgehog signaling in animal development: paradigms and principles |journal= Genes & Development |volume= 15 |issue= 23 |pages=3059–87 |year= 2001 |doi=10.1101/gad.938601 |pmid=11731473|doi-access= free }}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12906803 Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
• [http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2012/06/07/high-impact-science-hedgehogs-flies-and-skin-cancer-the-story-of-vismodegib/ Scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org]

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Category:British geneticists

Category:1955 births

Category:Scientists from Liverpool

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)

Category:Academics of the University of Sheffield

Category:Alumni of the University of Sussex

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge

Category:People educated at Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby