Brian Morris (biologist)

Brian Morris is a professor of molecular medical sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is a molecular biologist, and has published about 250 research papers. He is on the editorial board of two international journals, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia.

As an academic, he publicly promotes scientific research findings in his areas of expertise, including molecular biology, high blood pressure, longevity, and cervical cancer screening. He has patents awarded in the US, UK, Europe and Australia on use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology in detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) - the cause of over 99% of cervical cancers - and is currently trying to bring this to the market in conjunction with a self-sampling procedure for women, so they can avoid the ordeal of a Pap smear. Human papillomavirus is sexually transmitted.

Morris believes that there is "'overwhelming' evidence to support male circumcision," and that although he does not believe that all males should undergo the procedure, Morris feels "it should be in the same category as immunization." His website is a referenced review of the benefits claimed for circumcision. He has criticised the circumcision policy of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, which he says is "not evidence-based and should be retracted." Morris wrote the 1999 book In Favour of Circumcision; Basil Donovan criticized the book as as "dangerous" and "a serious disservice to parents."

A major theme of his lifelong research has been the important blood pressure-regulating enzyme protein renin. In the early 1980s Prof Morris was the first to clone the gene for human renin, as well as the first human kallikrein gene (showing that it was prostate-specific, relevant to prostate cancer screening, just as its closest relative PSA). He also cloned the first cardiac myosin heavy chain gene. He and his team were the first to elucidated the biosynthetic pathway of renin, as well as key molecular mechanisms in renin's transcriptional and posttranscriptional control. However, his first breakthrough, in the early 1970s, was the identification of the existence of an inactive precursor (pro) form of renin that could be activated by trypsin and pepsin. In 1988 Prof Morris pioneered the field of the molecular genetics of hypertension, being the first to publish in this area, and has published extensively in this area ever since. More recently his lab has identified various splicing factors and shown how they modulate alternative splicing. In the past year he has begun research to discover global gene expression changes in ageing cells and the effects of the putative longevity factor resveratrol, a stilbenoid found in red wine.

Brian Morris grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, where he graduated with First Class Honours from the University of Adelaide in 1972. He then completed his PhD in Melbourne in 1975, leading to the award of a prestigious Sir Charles James Martin Overseas Research Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. From 1975-1978 this supported him as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Missouri, and the University of California, San Francisco, where in his last year he was supported by the American Heart Association. He was then appointed as an academic at the University of Sydney in 1978, where he has been ever since. His was awarded the Royal Society of New South Wales' State Science Prize in 1985, and in 1993 the University of Sydney awarded him a DSc. In 2003 he was elected as a prestigious Honorary Fellow of the American Heart Association Council for High Blood Pressure Research. He won the Faculty of Medicine's Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Research Supervision in 2006, and The Scroll of Honour, a community service award for his public health advocacy, by Waverley Council on Australia Day in 2007.

Prof Morris is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney, Australia. He is an advocate of healthy living, including diet (nutrition) and regular physical exercise, applying health messages from emerging research to his own lifestyle. In 2005 he appeared on several TV news programmes to suggest the introduction of a tax on junk food coupled with subsidies for healthy food to help combat the obesity epidemic. He is a frequent news media commentator, with numerous appearances on TV, interviews on radio, and regularly features in newspapers and magazines.