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Imperial celebrates three new Royal Society Fellows. Professors Buck, Duff and Ainsworth elected to the Royal Society - 22 May 2009 A microbiologist, a theoretical physicist and a structures expert from Imperial College London have joined the Fellowship of the Royal Society this week as part of the 2009 election of 44 new fellows. Professors Martin Buck, joint head of the Division of Biology, Michael Duff, in the Department of Physics, and Robert Ainsworth, a Visiting Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, are recognised for their contributions to science and are now permitted to use the letters FRS after their name. They bring the number of Royal Society Fellows at Imperial to 66. Martin Buck, Professor of Molecular Microbiology, is praised by the Royal Society for his "pioneering contributions to our understanding of molecular mechanisms of transcription initiation in bacteria." Professor Buck's research explores how genes are controlled in response to environmental changes. His work revealed how a 'molecular machine' called RNA polymerase allows access to the genetic information stored in DNA. His work has established a new paradigm for gene activation in bacteria, which utilizes nucleotide hydrolysis by activator proteins to change the structure of RNA polymerase, thus kick-starting the gene transcription process.
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