Education
Brownlee was educated at Dulwich College and, Cambridge where he studied Natural Sciences and was awarded a Master of Arts degree followed by Doctor of Philosophy in 1967 for research on nucleotides supervised by Fred Sanger.
Brownlee was educated at Dulwich College and, Cambridge where he studied Natural Sciences and was awarded a Master of Arts degree followed by Doctor of Philosophy in 1967 for research on nucleotides supervised by Fred Sanger.
Brownlee was Professor of Chemical Pathology at Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, from 1978 to 2008. Brownlee cloned and expressed human clotting factor IX, providing a recombinant source of this protein for Haemophilia B patients who had previously relied on the hazardous blood-derived product. With Merlin Crossley he helped discover the two sets of genetic mutations that were preventing two key proteins from attaching to the deoxyribonucleic acid of people with a rare and unusual form of Haemophilia B - Haemophilia B Leyden - where sufferers experience episodes of excessive bleeding in childhood but have few bleeding problems after puberty.
This lack of protein attachment to the deoxyribonucleic acid was thereby turning off the gene that produces clotting factor IX, which prevents excessive bleeding.
With Peter Palese and co-workers he developed the first reverse genetics system for influenza virus, markedly speeding up the process of developing influenza vaccines. Brownlee authored a biography of Fred Sanger published in 2014.
Royal Society.