Stephen Bustin obtained his PhD in Molecular Genetics from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland in 1983 and carried out post-doctoral research at the Animal Virus Research Institute in Pirbright, UK. He spent three years researching new Technologies whilst at the Corporate Research Institute, Amersham International plc, focusing on reverse transcription, nucleic acid amplification, gene synthesis and cloning. In 1989 he returned to academic research as Senior Research Fellow at the London Hospital Medical College, where his research concentrated on methods to improve the reliability of colorectal cancer prognostic tests. He was appointed Senior Lecturer (1995), Reader (2002) and Professor of Molecular Science (2004) at Queen Mary University of London. In 2012 he moved to Anglia Ruskin University as Professor of Allied Health and Medicine and since 2015 is Professor of Molecular Medicine at ARU.
His research focuses around developing novel approaches for the early diagnosis of fungal and bacterial pathogens as well as addressing problems associated with the RT and PCR steps. He has authored numerous papers, review articles and book chapters aimed at improving the reproducibility and robustness of real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR), as well as three books “A-Z of quantitative PCR” (2004), “The PCR Revolution” (2011) and “PCR Technology” (2013). He has published an online series of qPCR-related books under the title of “Definitive qPCR”. Professor Bustin was an expert witness advising the UK High Court on qPCR technology in the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine - Autism class action and gave evidence on behalf of the US Department of Justice at the MMR omnibus trial in Washington DC in 2007. He led an international consortium developing the MIQE guidelines for the use and reporting of qPCR (2009) and digital PCR (2013). Professor Bustin has extensive editorial involvements as Editor-in-Chief, Biomolecular Detection and Quantification (Elsevier), Editor-in Chief (Gene Expression), International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and as a member of the editorial boards of several peer-reviewed journals. |