Professor Alan Bull

Alan Bull is a microbiologist with 60 years research experience. Throughout a distinguished career he has pursued fundamental questions in bacteriology and mycology with the ambition to see results applied to problems and opportunities in industry, the environment, and germane to developing countries. The impact of his work is to be found in direct uptake by industries, and shaping government and international policies particularly in relation to the development of biotechnology and clean technology.
Alan is an alumnus of the University of Nottingham and subsequently he held appointments in the University of London (Bedford and Queen Elizabeth Colleges), Cornell University, the University of Wales Institute of Science & Technology and the University of Newcastle (Honorary). He first came to Kent in 1970 at the founding of the then Biological Laboratory with the brief to set up research and teaching programmes in microbiology. On returning to Kent following his time in Cardiff he became Director of the Laboratory and championed biotechnology, outcomes of which included setting up the International Institute of Biotechnology (in collaboration with University College London and the Polytechnic of Central London), and the British Co-ordinating Committee for Biotechnology.  

Alan Bull was the Coordinator of a bilateral UK-Indonesia project Biodiversity for Biotechnology Development (1986-2000) aimed at the sustainable development of microbial resources in biodiversity-rich developing countries. Subsequent projects have focused specifically on bioprospecting in the extremobiosphere: the very deep seas (in collaboration with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), and currently the extreme hyper-arid desert (a Royal Society and Newton Fund supported project) based in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the oldest and continuously driest non-polar temperate biome on Earth (in collaboration with the Universities of Santiago and Antofagasta). The latter project in particular has revealed a mega-diversity of novel bacteria in an extremely hostile environment, many of which have the capacity to synthesize an abundance of new biologically active chemistry.
Research Interests 

• Microbial growth physiology and fermentation technology; development and applications of continuous flow culture   
• Environmental biotechnology; biodegradation of toxic chemicals
• Animal cell culture; control of the glycosylation of therapeutic proteins 
• Bioprospecting for bioactive bacterial natural products (antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer). The abyssomicins isolated from a deep sea actinomycete were the first known natural inhibitors of the chorismate pathway in pathogenic bacteria thereby constituting a novel molecular target

Affiliations 

•  Fellow, Royal Society of Biology 
•  Fellow, Royal Society of Arts 
•  Fellow, Learned Society of Wales
• Fulbright Fellow (1968-1969)
• Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow (2003-2005) 
• Member of the Unesco/UNEP/ICRO Panel on Applied Microbiology and Task Force Leader (1976-1985) 
• Chair, Scientific Committee, European Federation of Biotechnology (1980-1983) 
• Member of and advisor to numerous UK Government, European Union, UN and NGO organisations; and industrial consultancies in the UK and world wide. 

Secondments 

• Organization for Economic & Cultural Development (1980-1982, Biotechnology)
• Organization for Economic & Cultural Development (1996-1998, Clean Technology) 
• Porton International (LH Bioprocessing Ltd Director, 1984-1992) 
• Carbury Herne Ltd (Director, 1991-2003)  

Professional Societies  

Professor Bull has served on the editorial boards of several British and other scientific societies and, with Ian Swingland (DICE) was founding editor-in-chief of Biodiversity and Conservation. He was General Secretary of the Society for General Microbiology and of the British Co-ordinating Committee for Biotechnology.