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Is alec jeffreys still alive

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An evening with Sir Alec Jeffreys

The Biologist 63(4) p16-19

The inventor of DNA fingerprinting speaks to Alison Woollard about the scientists who inspired him and the 'eureka moment' that revolutionised forensic science

In 1984, Alec Jeffreys was in his lab in Leicester when an idea came to him. He had been researching genetic variation, and had suddenly realised the obvious and enormously significant application of the technique he had developed: the biological identification of any individual using only a tiny sample of their DNA.

By the 1990s, DNA fingerprinting had become a standard part of criminal investigations, as well as immigration disputes, paternity tests, war crime evidence gathering and more. Sir Alec now estimates that between 50 and 70 million people worldwide have been touched somehow by the drama of DNA identification, which, he says, "is almost always profound and life changing for the people involved".

Earlier this summer, the Society brought Sir Alec and The Biologist's Alison Woollard together in conversation in front of a live audience at the S

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Alec Jeffreys

British geneticist (born 1950)

Sir Alec John Jeffreys, CH FRS MAE[6] (born 9 January 1950)[5] is a British geneticist known for developing techniques for genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling which are now used worldwide in forensic science to assist police detective work and to resolve paternity and immigration disputes.[4][7][8]

Jeffreys is professor of genetics at the University of Leicester,[9][10] and became an honorary freeman of the City of Leicester on 26 November 1992.[11] In 1994, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to genetics.[9][12][13]

Early life and education

Jeffreys was born into a middle-class family in Oxford, where he spent the first six years of his life until 1956 when the family moved to Luton, Bedfordshire.[5] He says he inherited his curiosity and inventiveness from his father and paternal grandfather, who held a number of patents.[8] When he was eight, his father gave him

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Cases

Alec Jeffreys at work in his University of Leicester laboratory, 1985

University of Leicester

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Alec Jeffreys and the Pitchfork murder case: the origins of DNA profiling

British geneticist Alec Jeffreys began working in 1977 on a technique that could identify individuals through samples of their DNA. In 1984, he and colleagues devised a way to use a newly discovered property of DNA, isolated areas of great variability between individuals called restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP), for forensic identification—the original DNA fingerprint.

In 1986, police asked Jeffreys for help in finding a man who had raped and killed two girls. DNA tests exonerated the primary suspect. Through a genetic dragnet, police found the perpetrator, Colin Pitchfork, who gave himself away when he asked a friend for a substitute blood sample.

Within a year, genetic fingerprinting was making the unique molecular structures of victims and suspects visible in criminal investigations around the world. Today, RFLP-based DNA analysis is being supplanted by newe

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