Personal Chair: Kim Summers
Kim Summers has been made a Personal Chair of Comparative Genetics.
Professor Summers was educated in Canberra, Australia where she was awarded a BSc (Hons) in 1974 and a PhD in 1979, both in the area of Biochemical Genetics.
She also completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Human Biology at the University of Oxford in 1976 and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education at the University of Queensland in 1992.
Following the completion of her PhD she returned to Oxford as a postdoctoral fellow in biological anthropology and subsequently genetics.
She then took up a research fellowship in human genetics at the Australian National University.
This was followed by further appointments at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas, US) and the University of Queensland, Australia, using the developing technologies of molecular medicine to understand the genetic basis of disease in humans.
Professor Summers spent six years as Director of Genetic Education with the Queensland Clinical Genetics Service.
This experience provided her with a strong understanding of the issues facing families with an inherited disease.
She is still a regular contributor to newsletters of support groups for genetic conditions and committed to public engagement with science.
Following her appointment at the Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh she has continued to study the molecular basis of diseases affecting the development of the heart, eyes and bones, using animal conditions with similar symptoms.