The Royal Society of NSW is delighted that one of its Fellows, Professor John Shine AC FRS FRSN FAA, has just been elected, in 2020, as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He is well known for his role in discovering the Shine-Dalgarno gene sequence, and was responsible for the initiation and termination of protein-synthesis. Further, he was a central figure in the cloning of the insulin and growth hormone genes, was the first to clone a human gene, and the first to demonstrate that hormone genes cloned in bacteria could be expressed in a biologically active form.

Professionally, he served as Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research from 1990 until 2011, and as Chairman of the biopharmaceutical company CSL from 2011-18. He is also an ex-Chairman of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) and a past President of the Museum of Applied Arts and Science (the Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Observatory).

He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1996 for services to medical research, and in 2010 was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, the nation‘s highest scientific award. In 2017, he was appointed as a Companion of the Order of Australia. Since May 2018, he has been President of the Australian Academy of Science, of which he has been a Fellow since 1994.