Benjamin J. Blencowe

Education Blencowe studied microbiology and molecular biology at Imperial College London, where he received an BSc (with first class honours) in 1988. He undertook graduate research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, as an external student of the University of London, earning his PhD in 1991.

Career and research After receiving his PhD, Blencowe joined the Center of Cancer Research (renamed Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Human Frontier Science Program Long Term Fellow in 1992. He was appointed Assistant Professor at University of Toronto in 1998 and promoted to full Professor in 2006.

Blencowe’s research focuses on fundamental questions relating to RNA biology. He was a recipient of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada John C. Polanyi Award in 2011 for his contributions to the understanding of the RNA splicing code. Blencowe was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) in 2017, and Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2019. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2025.