James Turner

James Turner is Assistant Research Director at the Francis Crick institute and a Wellcome Trust Investigator, working on mammalian sex chromosome biology. He identified the mechanisms causing infertility in the most common sex chromosome abnormalities Turner syndrome (XO), Jacob syndrome (XYY) and Klinefelter syndrome (XXY). He also devised the first therapeutic approaches to reverse germ cell loss in these conditions. He identified multiple components of the germ cell surveillance pathways that protect offspring from genome instability and aneuploidy. He overturned several dogmas in the sex chromosome field, for instance showing that the X chromosome, previously assumed to be the female-specialised counterpart to the male Y chromosome, contains hundreds of genes regulating sperm formation. He has championed the use of marsupials to resolve major unanswered questions in sex chromosome evolution and epigenetics. He discovered the non-coding RNA Rsx, the long-sought after marsupial equivalent of the eutherian X-inactivation initiating RNA Xist. He also identified Xsr, the Rsx-antisense RNA that may control imprinting of X-inactivation in marsupials. These discoveries provided a comparative system with which to dissect how non-coding RNAs regulate gene expression. Most recently, he created the first CRISPR-based system for generating all-male or all-female mouse litters, an achievement that will be of great relevance to research and agriculture. His achievements have been acknowledged by election as an EMBO member and a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences.