Benjamin Blencowe

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research, University of Toronto
Canada

Benjamin Blencowe is the Banbury Chair of Medical Research and Canada Research Chair in RNA Biology and Genomics at the University of Toronto. He studied microbiology at Imperial College London, where he received a BSc hon in 1988. He undertook graduate research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, earning his PhD in 1991. Blencowe then joined the Center of Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992. He was appointed Assistant Professor at University of Toronto in 1998 and full Professor in 2006. Blencowe’s research focuses on fundamental questions relating to RNA biology. His research group has made pioneering contributions to the development and application of high-throughput methods for studying RNA processing and RNA-RNA interactions. This research has contributed global-scale insights into the complexity, evolution, regulation, and function of alternative splicing, including the discovery of splicing networks that control stem cell pluripotency and neurogenesis. His most recent research has focussed on a program of neuronal alternative splicing that is commonly disrupted in neurological disorders, work that has opened the door to a new therapeutic strategy for autism. Blencowe has received numerous awards for his research.  He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2017, and Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2019.