World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
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Molecular Biology
Germany
2026
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Genetics
UK
2024

D-Index & Metrics

Genetics

D-Index
139
Citations
200104
World Ranking
181
National Ranking
12

Molecular Biology

D-Index
139
Citations
200104
World Ranking
131
National Ranking
9

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Molecular Biology in Germany Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Molecular Biology in Germany Leader Award
  • 2024 - Research.com Genetics in United Kingdom Leader Award
  • 2024 - Research.com Genetics and Molecular Biology in United Kingdom Leader Award
  • 2023 - Research.com Genetics in United Kingdom Leader Award
  • 2014 - Fellow of the Royal Society, United Kingdom

Overview

Ewan Birney is affiliated with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany. Their research primarily spans the field of Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology, with a strong focus on several subfields including Molecular Biology, Genetics, Cancer Research, Plant Science, and Ophthalmology.

The scientist's work has addressed a variety of main topics, such as:

  • Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Genomics and Rare Diseases
  • RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
  • Retinal Development and Disorders
  • Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics
  • RNA modifications and cancer
  • Melanin and skin pigmentation

Frequent publication venues where Ewan Birney's research appears include:

  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
  • Nature
  • Nature Communications
  • Nucleic Acids Research
  • Bioinformatics

Among the recent papers associated with their work are:

  • AlphaFold Protein Structure Database: massively expanding the structural coverage of protein-sequence space with high-accuracy models, 2021, Nucleic Acids Research
  • Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes, 2020, Nature
  • Highly accurate protein structure prediction for the human proteome, 2021, Nature
  • Sequence and comparative analysis of the chicken genome provide unique perspectives on vertebrate evolution, 2021, Kent Academic Repository (University of Kent)
  • AlphaFold Protein Structure Database in 2024: providing structure coverage for over 214 million protein sequences, 2023, Nucleic Acids Research

Their frequent co-authors include:

  • Tomas Fitzgerald
  • Joachim Wittbrodt
  • Panagiotis I. Sergouniotis
  • Søren Brunak
  • Adrien Léger

Ewan Birney has been recognized as a Fellow of the Royal Society in the United Kingdom since 2014.

Best Publications

  • Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome.

    Eric S. Lander;Lauren M. Linton;Bruce Birren;Chad Nusbaum

  • Velvet: Algorithms for de novo short read assembly using de Bruijn graphs

    Daniel R. Zerbino;Ewan Birney

  • Initial sequencing and comparative analysis of the mouse genome.

    Robert H. Waterston;Kerstin Lindblad-Toh;Ewan Birney;Jane Rogers

  • AlphaFold Protein Structure Database: massively expanding the structural coverage of protein-sequence space with high-accuracy models.

    Mihaly Varadi;Stephen Anyango;Mandar Deshpande;Sreenath Nair

  • Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project

    Ewan Birney;John A. Stamatoyannopoulos;Anindya Dutta;Roderic Guigó

  • A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome

    Richard E. Green;Johannes Krause;Adrian W. Briggs;Tomislav Maricic

  • Patterns of somatic mutation in human cancer genomes

    Christopher Greenman;Philip Stephens;Raffaella Smith;Gillian L. Dalgliesh

  • Mapping identifiers for the integration of genomic datasets with the R/Bioconductor package biomaRt.

    Steffen Durinck;Paul T Spellman;Ewan Birney;Wolfgang Huber

  • The ENCODE (ENCyclopedia of DNA elements) Project

    E. A. Feingold;P. J. Good;M. S. Guyer;S. Kamholz

  • Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

    Peter J. Campbell;Gad Getz;Jan O. Korbel;Joshua M. Stuart

  • Highly accurate protein structure prediction for the human proteome

    Kathryn Tunyasuvunakool;Jonas Adler;Zachary Wu;Tim Green

  • An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome

    Ian Dunham;Anshul Kundaje;Shelley F. Aldred;Patrick J. Collins

  • Automated generation of heuristics for biological sequence comparison

    Guy St C Slater;Ewan Birney

  • GeneWise and Genomewise

    Ewan Birney;Michele Clamp;Richard Durbin

  • The Genome Sequence of the Malaria Mosquito Anopheles gambiae

    Robert A. Holt;G. Mani Subramanian;Aaron Halpern;Granger G. Sutton

  • Sequence and comparative analysis of the chicken genome provide unique perspectives on vertebrate evolution

    Ladeana W. Hillier;Webb Miller;Ewan Birney;Wesley Warren

  • Genome sequence of the Brown Norway rat yields insights into mammalian evolution

    Richard A. Gibbs;George M. Weinstock;Michael L. Metzker;Donna M. Muzny

  • International network of cancer genome projects

    Thomas J. Hudson;Thomas J. Hudson;Warwick Anderson;Axel Aretz;Anna D. Barker

  • Landscape of somatic mutations in 560 breast cancer whole-genome sequences

    Serena Nik-Zainal;Serena Nik-Zainal;Helen Davies;Johan Staaf;Manasa Ramakrishna

  • Comparative Genomics of the Eukaryotes

    Gerald M. Rubin;Mark D. Yandell;Jennifer R. Wortman;George L. Gabor

Frequent Co-Authors

Paul Flicek
Paul Flicek The Jackson Laboratory
Richard Durbin
Richard Durbin University of Cambridge
Ian Dunham
Ian Dunham European Bioinformatics Institute
Tim Hubbard
Tim Hubbard King's College London
Eric S. Lander
Eric S. Lander Broad Institute
Peter D'Eustachio
Peter D'Eustachio New York University
Oliver Stegle
Oliver Stegle German Cancer Research Center
Lincoln Stein
Lincoln Stein Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
Roderic Guigó
Roderic Guigó Pompeu Fabra University
David Haussler
David Haussler University of California, Santa Cruz

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