Most of Ashburner's research was on the model organism Drosophila melanogaster.[9][21][22][23][24][25][26] Ashburner's career began in the early period of molecular biology prior to the development of most of the recombinant
DNA techniques in use today, such as Northern/Southern/Western blotting. Nevertheless, by observing patterns of "puffing" in
polytene chromosomes,[21] he established the existence of a cascade of genetic controls in the post-larval development triggered by
ecdysone.[27] The Ashburner model of 1974 became a paradigm for
metazoan gene regulation inasmuch as the
Jacob-
Monod model did for prokaryotes. Ashburner collaborated widely and mentored numerous PhD students and
postdoctoral research students during his career.[28][29]
Ashburner was also an early pioneer in the application of computers to biology. His contributions include his active participation in setting up
FlyBase[11] and the development of
Open Biomedical Ontologies[36] to allow machine-searchable annotation of biological information, particularly the
Gene Ontology[10][37]
[38] and
ChEBI.[39] He was instrumental in establishing the EBI,[40] as well as securing its location in the UK,[20] and acted as the first head of the EBI jointly with Graham Cameron.[41]
Open science advocacy
As part of his involvement the sequencing of the D. melanogaster genome, Ashburner played an instrumental role in ensuring that the resulting sequence and annotations would be made publicly available.[30] Additionally, Ashburner made a strong case for the human genome published in
Science in 2000 by
Celera Genomics to be made freely available,[42][43][44][45] and spoke out repeatedly against the privatization of genomic resources.[45][46] Ashburner was also one of the signatories of the first open letter to Science in 2001 calling for a centralized, open repository of the scientific literature,[47] and subsequently became a strong advocate of
Open Access publishing,[48][49] speaking out for this cause in the scientific literature[20][50] and popular media.[51][52][53] He also provided written evidence to the UK Parliament Select Committee on Science and Technology supporting
Open Access publishing[54] and served on the initial advisory board of
UK PubMed Central,[55] the first global mirror site of the
PubMed Central repository of freely available biological literature.
"Distinguished for his wide-ranging researches on the cytology, genetics and evolution of Drosophila melanogaster. He was the first to make a comprehensive map of puffs in the salivary gland polytene chromosomes and to define the stage at which each was expressed. He went on to demonstrate the effects of various stimuli, especially heat-shock and ecdysone, on puffing at specific loci, and correlated particular puffs with particular gene products. Combining genetic, cytological and molecular methodology, he has investigated in fine detail particular chromosome regions, especially that surrounding the Adh (alcohol dehydrogenase) gene, revealing many novel features of structure and function. He has also made important contributions to the understanding of evolution and speciation within the D.melanogaster group of species. Ashburner has unique standing as a scholar and authority in the whole area of Drosophila research."[57]
Ashburner married Francesca Ryan and had one son and two daughters, Rebecca, Geoffrey and Isabel.[6][7] He died on 7 July 2023, at the age of 81.[6][18][59]
^
abAshburner, M.; Chihara, C.; Meltzer, P.; Richards, G. (1974). "Temporal control of puffing activity in polytene chromosomes". Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology. 38: 655–662.
doi:
10.1101/sqb.1974.038.01.070.
PMID4208797.
^Adams, M.; Celniker, S.; Holt, R.; Evans, C.; Gocayne, J.; Amanatides, P.; Scherer, S.; Li, P.; Hoskins, R.; Galle, R. F.; George, R. A.; Lewis, S. E.; Richards, S.; Ashburner, M.; Henderson, S. N.; Sutton, G. G.; Wortman, J. R.; Yandell, M. D.; Zhang, Q.; Chen, L. X.; Brandon, R. C.; Rogers, Y. H.; Blazej, R. G.; Champe, M.; Pfeiffer, B. D.; Wan, K. H.; Doyle, C.; Baxter, E. G.; Helt, G.; et al. (2000). "The genome sequence of Drosophila melanogaster". Science. 287 (5461): 2185–2195.
Bibcode:
2000Sci...287.2185..
CiteSeerX10.1.1.549.8639.
doi:
10.1126/science.287.5461.2185.
PMID10731132.
^Hill, R. J.; Billas, I. M. L.; Bonneton, F. O.; Graham, L. D.; Lawrence, M. C. (2013). "Ecdysone Receptors: From the Ashburner Model to Structural Biology*". Annual Review of Entomology. 58: 251–271.
doi:
10.1146/annurev-ento-120811-153610.
PMID23072463.