Sydney Brenner, who helped decipher the genetic code, dies at the age of 92

Sydney Brenner, a Nobel laureate biologist who helped to decipher the genetic code and whose research on a roundworm triggered a new field of research on human diseases, has passed away. He was 92 years old.

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, where Brenner spent part of his career in the last seven years, announced his death Friday in Singapore.

"He will be remembered forever for his brilliant discoveries that ushered in a new scientific era and a new generation of scientists," said Ronald Evans, a biologist at the institute.

Brenner shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2002 for his contribution to the work on how genes control cell division. Together with his colleagues, John Sulston and Robert Horvitz, he drew a transparent roundworm called C. elegans to determine how cells divide and create something new.

The findings on programmed cell death have been critical to understanding the development of cancer and laid the foundation for making C. elegans a major model organism in research.

However, his most important contribution to science was the work he did with Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, among others, to determine the genetic code. In 1961, they demonstrated that DNA consists of a series of three nucleotides called codons, which encode the amino acids constituting a protein.

It has also helped discover messenger RNA, the molecule that directs the production of amino acids by the cell.

Born in South Africa in 1927, Brenner spent most of his career in Britain. He obtained his doctorate at Oxford University. Later, he joined the University of Cambridge and shared an office with Crick for 20 years.

In the early 1990s, Brenner traveled to California where he first worked at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, then joined Crick as a distinguished professor at the Salk Institute. He spent the latter part of his career developing the biomedical sciences in Singapore, where he became the first honorary citizen.

Brenner is survived by his three children. His wife died in 2010.

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