John Graham White

John Graham White (born 1943) FRS is a Professor Emeritus of Anatomy and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

White was educated at Brunel University, where he was awarded an undergraduate degree in Physics in 1969. He went on to study for his Ph.D. at University of Cambridge in 1975 for work on computer-aided reconstruction of the nervous system of Caenorhabditis elegans supervised by Sydney Brenner.

After working at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, White moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1993. White's research investigates cell division in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. With collaborators Sydney Brenner, John Sulston and others, White co-developed confocal microscopy and mapped the complete nervous system of Caenorhabditis elegans, consisting of 302 neurons and over 7000 synapses. The study was published in 1986 by the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and is considered to be the first work in the emerging field of connectomes. More recently his research uses:

White identified the first gene with a demonstrated role in determining synaptic specificity. He studied the role of cell–cell interaction in determining the lineage pattern, stimulating a wide field of research. In more recent work, John and his co-workers partially confirmed his earlier model of cytokinesis; they discovered genes controlling cytokinesis and found features previously thought specific to plant cell division. Recognising the potentialities of laser-scanning confocal microscopy, John built a prototype microscope: with William Bradshaw Amos he developed this into a commercially produced instrument now widely used.

White was the recipient of the Mullard Award in 1994. He was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 1994 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2005.

White has been professor emeritus since he retired in 2008.