Victor Tybulewicz

Victor Tybulewicz obtained his BSc from Imperial College London and then studied for a PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, under the supervision of Dr John Walker, working on the ATP synthases of bacteria and mitochondria.

As a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Professor Richard Mulligan, he worked on methods to target mouse embryonic stem cells.

On returning to the UK in 1991 he set up a group at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) using mouse genetics to study signal transduction in lymphocytes, exploring the roles of signalling molecules in B and T cell development, activation, migration, adhesion and survival. Recent work includes studies of the SYK and WNK1 kinases and the BAFF receptor BAFFR. In 2015 his lab moved to the Francis Crick Institute.

In addition, with Elizabeth Fisher of UCL he generated a novel model of Down Syndrome, the Tc1 mouse strain with a freely segregating copy of human chromosome 21 (Hsa21). Analysis of the mice showed that they have a series of phenotypes resembling the human condition.

More recently he has generated a large panel of mice trisomic for different sets of Hsa21 genes or their mouse orthologues, and is using these to identify 'dosage-sensitive' genes that are required in three copies to cause specific Down syndrome phenotypes. Recent work has identified a region of Hsa21 containing the genes that cause congenital heart defects.

Tybulewicz has been elected a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.