2012 Lunar Society Annual Lecture: Sir Alec Jeffreys

NINTH ANNUAL LECTURE: 15th March 2012

Due to a sudden illness Sir Alec Jeffrreys was unable to deliver the Lunar Society Annual Lecture and sadly it was cancelled.

On 15th March 2012, the Lunar Society was due to hold the Ninth Annual Lecture at Thinktank Theatre. The lecture was to be given by Sir Alec Jeffreys on 'Genetic fingerprinting: past, present and future'. Sir Alec would have discussed the origins of DNA fingerprinting through to the latest developments and their social impacts.

Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys studied biochemistry and genetics at Merton College, Oxford. Following an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Amsterdam where, with Dr Richard Flavell, he was one of the first to discover split genes, he moved in 1977 to the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester where he currently holds the positions of Professor of Genetics and Royal Society Wolfson Research Professor.

Sir Alec's research at Leicester focuses on exploring human DNA diversity and the mutation processes that create this diversity. He was one of the first to discover inherited variation in human DNA, then went on to invent DNA fingerprinting, showing how it can be used to resolve issues of identity and kinship. His current work concentrates on developing new approaches to analysing variation and mutation in human chromosomes.

His current work is aimed at trying to understand how variation is generated in human DNA, by developing new and very powerful techniques to detect spontaneous changes in the genetic information as it is transmitted from parent to child.

Sir Alec’s work has received widespread recognition, including his election to the Royal Society in 1986 and a Knighthood for services to genetics in 1994. Other awards include the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2004), the Lasker Award (2005) and the Heineken Prize (2006). He was also one of the four finalists for the Millennium Prize in 2008."

We do of course, hope to invite Sir Alec back at a later date to conduct this fascinating talk and will place information on our website should the event be rescheduled.

Kindly sponsored by the British Science Association, West Midlands Branch