Name Jane Clarke Role Scientist | Doctoral advisor Alan Fersht | |
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Born Jane Morgan
10 September 1950 (age 73)
London ( 1950-09-10 ) Fields Biophysics
Biochemistry
Protein folding Institutions University of Cambridge
Centre for Protein Engineering
Northumberland Park Community School Alma mater University of York (BSc)
Georgia Institute of Technology (MSc)
University of Cambridge (PGCE, PhD) Thesis Studies of disulphide mutants of barnase (1993) Notable students Sarah Batey
Robert Best
Kate Billings
Ernesto Cota
Julia Forman
Susan Fowler
Christian Geierhaas
Stephan Hamill
Stephanie Hill
Mike Hurley
Sean Ng
Tina Perica
Lucy Randles
Joseph Rogers
Madeleine Ross
Ross Rounsevell
Kathryn Scott
Beth Wensley Notable awards FRS (2015)
FRSC (2013)
FMedSci (2013)
US Genomics Award (2010) | ||
Jane Clarke, FRS, FRSC, FMedSci (née Morgan; born 10 September 1950) is Professor of Molecular Biophysics, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
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Education and career
Clarke was educated at the University of York where she graduated with a first class honours degree in Biochemistry in 1972. She went on to study for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) at the University of Cambridge in 1973. Clarke was a science teacher in several secondary schools, and a Head of Science at Northumberland Park School, Tottenham from 1973 to 1986.
She returned to research, gaining a Master of Science degree in Applied Biology in 1990 from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a PhD in 1993 for investigations of Bacterial Ribonuclease (Barnase) from the University of Cambridge supervised by Alan Fersht.
Clarke was appointed a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in 2001, a Professor of Molecular Biophysics in 2009 and a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 2010.
Research
Clarke's research investigates protein folding, in particular:
- Studies of Structurally Related Proteins
- Multidomain Proteins: Effects of Sequence on Folding and Misfolding
- Folding and Assembly: Intrinsically disordered proteins
Clarke's research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and has been published in leading peer reviewed scientific journals including Biochemistry, Structure, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the Biophysical Journal, Nature, Science, PNAS, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Current Opinion Structural Biology and the Journal of Molecular Biology.
Awards and honours
In 2010, Clarke was awarded the US Genomics award from the Biophysical Society. Clarke was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2013. Her nomination for the Academy of Medical Sciences reads:
Jane Clarke is a distinguished biophysical chemist at the University of Cambridge. She is recognised internationally for her multidisciplinary studies that have advanced the understanding of protein folding and misfolding. She pioneered the application of protein engineering techniques together with single molecule force spectroscopy and simulations to investigate the effect of force on proteins. For this she was awarded the Biophysical Society U.S Genomics Award for Outstanding Investigator in the field of Single Molecule Biology in 2010; at the time, the only non-US and still the only female recipient of this prestigious award.
Clarke was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2015. Her certificate of election reads:
Jane Clarke is distinguished for the rigorous physical chemistry approaches she has adapted and applied to understand protein folding and misfolding. Her fundamental studies revealed the presence of both parallel pathways and frustration in the energy landscape of apparently simple proteins. Most significantly, she has made very important advances in the study of multi-domain systems. From her discovery that aggregation and misfolding are determined by sequence similarity, through to her seminal studies combining force spectroscopy and protein engineering to elucidate mechanical unfolding energy landscapes, she has transformed our understanding of the evolution, folding and energetics of multidomain proteins.
Personal life
Clarke married Christopher Clarke in 1973 and has one son and one daughter.