Sydney Brenner
Sydney Brenner (born 1927 January 13) is a British biologist active in the United States. Born in Germiston, South Africa, he made seminal contributions to the emerging field of molecular biology in the 1960s, notably in the elucidation of the triplet code of protein translation through the the Crick, Brenner et al. experiment of 1961, which discovered frameshift mutations. This insight provided early elucidation of the genetic code.Brenner then turned his sights on establishing Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of animal development including neural development. For the latter work he shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and John Sulston.
Brenner founded the Molecular Sciences Institute and is currently associated with the Salk Institute. Known for his penetrating scientific insight and ascerbic wit, Brenner has for many years penned a regular column ("Loose Ends") in the journal Current Biology.