Alec Jeffreys

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Alec Jeffreys bigraphy, stories - Inventor of genetic fingerprinting

Alec Jeffreys : biography

19 January 1950 –

Professor Sir Alec John Jeffreys, FRS (born 9 January 1950 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England) is a British geneticist, who developed techniques for DNA fingerprinting and DNA profiling which are now used all over the world in forensic science to assist police detective work, and also to resolve paternity and immigration disputes. BBC. Retrieved 14 October 2011 He is a professor of genetics at the University of Leicester, and he became an honorary freeman of the City of Leicester on 26 November 1992. In 1994, he was knighted by her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, for Services to Science and Technology.

Personal life

Jeffreys met his future wife, Sue, in a youth club in the centre of Luton, Bedfordshire before he became a university student. Jeffreys married Sue (née Miles) on 28 August 1971, and they have two daughters, born in 1979 and 1983. Their two daughters were still very young and growing up when Jeffreys’ work life became hectic for the two or three years following his genetic fingerprinting breakthrough.

Early life

Jeffreys was born on 9 January 1950 in Oxford. He came from a middle-class family and has one brother and sister. He spent the first six years of his life in Oxford until 1956 when the family moved to Luton. His curiosity and inventiveness were probably gained from his father, as well as his paternal grandfather who had a number of patents to his name. When he was eight years old his father gave him a large chemistry set which was enhanced over the next few years with extra chemicals including a bottle of concentrated sulphuric acid, bought from a pharmacy, at a time when pharmacists were less regulated than now. He liked making small explosions, but an accidental splash of sulphuric acid caused a burn and a permanent scar on his chin (now under his beard). When he was about eight or nine years old, his father bought him a beautiful Victorian brass microscope, which he used to examine biological specimens, furthering his interest in biology. At about 12 years old he made a small dissecting kit (including a scalpel crafted from a flattened pin) which he used to dissect a bumblebee, but he got into trouble with his parents when he progressed to dissecting a larger specimen. One Sunday morning he found a dead cat on the road while doing his paper round and took it home in his bag. He started to dissect it before Sunday lunch on the dining room table causing a foul smell throughout the house, which was particularly bad after he ruptured its intestines.

Jeffreys was a pupil at Luton Grammar School and then Luton Sixth Form College. He followed the youth culture of the time and initially became a Mod while owning a Vespa 150 cc motor-scooter and wearing a parka jacket. He was then a Hippie for a while before buying a Matchless 350 cc motorcycle and becoming a Rocker. He won a scholarship to study at Merton College, Oxford on a four year course, which he started in 1968 and he graduated in 1972 with first-class honours degree in biochemistry.

Awards and recognition

  • 20 March 1986 – Fellow of the Royal Society.
  • 1989 – Midlander of the Year.
  • 1991 – Appointed as a Royal Society Research Professor.
  • 26 November 1992 – Honorary freeman of the City of Leicester.
  • 1994 – Knighted.
  • 1996 – Albert Einstein World Award of Science.
  • 1998 – Australia Prize.
  • 1999 – Stokes Medal
  • 2004 – Honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Leicester, where Jeffreys is a member of staff.
  • 2004 – Royal Medal of the Royal Society.
  • 2004 – Pride of Britain Award for Lifetime Achievement. Retrieved 14 October 2011
  • 2004 – Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine.
  • 2005 – Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, jointly with Edwin Southern of the University of Oxford.
  • 2005 – United States National Academy of Science, elected member.
  • December 2006 – Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by the University of Liverpool.
  • 2006 – Morgan Stanley Great Briton Award for the Greatest Briton of the year, winner in the category of Science and Innovation, as well as the overall winner.
  • 2006 – Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics.
  • 8 March 2007 – Honorary degree from King’s College London.
  • 23 January 2008 – Graham Medal of the Glasgow Philosophical Society, awarded after he gave his lecture "DNA Profiling; Past, present and future", which was nominated as the Graham Lecture.
  • 16 November 2009 – Awarded Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Huddersfield
  • 14 April 2010 – Awarded Edinburgh Medal
  • 21 February 2011 – Awarded ABRF Annual Award