Vadim Zalunin). Birney has also contributed to several other projects including the Pfam database, InterPro, BioPerl, and HMMER and Ensembl genome database project. , Birney's research group focuses on genomic algorithms and studying inter individual differences, in both human and other species. He has supervised several PhD students and postdoctoral researchers that have worked in his laboratory. His research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Medical Research Council (MRC) the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the Wellcome Trust and the European Union. Birney serves as a consultant to Oxford Nanopore Technologies and on the scientific advisory board of the Earlham Institute (formerly TGAC) in Norwich. Since 2022, he has served on the governing board at Eton College. Awards and honours In 2002, Birney was named as one of the MIT Technology Review TR100 top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2003, he gave the inaugural Francis Crick Lecture at the Royal Society: In 2005, he was awarded the Overton Prize by the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) for his advocacy of open source bioinformatics, contributions to the BioPerl community and leadership of the Ensembl genome annotation project. In 2005 Birney was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award in Bioinformatics: Birney was awarded membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2012 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014. His certificate of election and candidature reads: Birney has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science (DSc) degrees: in 2014 from Brunel University London and in 2021 from University of Tartu, Estonia. In 2015, Birney was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci). Birney was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours. Personal life Birney married in 2003 and has two children. References |- Living people Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization People educated at Eton College Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge British bioinformaticians Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Overton Prize winners Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Wellcome Trust 1972 births Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Human Genome Project scientists