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Andrew Millar, Ph.D., holds a Chair of Systems Biology at the University of Edinburgh. He combines molecular, physiological, and mathematical approaches in his research on the circadian clock in Arabidopsis thaliana. After undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, his thesis work established long-term luciferase reporter gene methods in vivo and identified the first plant mutants in clock genes, at the Rockefeller University, New York and the NSF Center for Biological Timing, Virginia. A central focus of his group's work is to develop biochemically realistic mathematical models of the Arabidopsis clock mechanism and its effects on whole-plant growth, constrained by experimental time series data and direct parameter measurements. Millar is P.I. for coordination of GARNet, the UK network for Arabidopsis functional genomics, which aims to promote both the uptake of systems biology and translation of Arabidopsis research to crops. As Co-Director and P.I. of the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh (CSBE), Millar leads one of 6 BBSRC/EPSRC-funded Centres for Integrative Systems Biology in the UK. CSBE's research focus is on the modelling of dynamic biological systems, using Edinburgh's strength in Informatics. He is also Systems Biology theme director for the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA). His BBSRC Research Development Fellowship was recently extended, to facilitate the interdisciplinary collaboration required for systems biology. | 