Profile of Alec J. Jeffreys

Abstract

As one of the great contributors to modern genetics, Sir Alec Jeffreys was born with curiosity in his genes as the son and grandson of prolific inventors. Jeffreys displayed an insatiable quest for knowledge, and his father fostered his son's budding scientific interests with gifts of a microscope and chemistry set, the latter of which produced one of Jeffreys' most memorable scientific ventures. “Those were back in the happy days of chemistry,” Jeffreys points out, “where you could go down to your local pharmacist and get virtually everything you wanted.” The end result of that chemistry experiment was the detonation of his aunt's apple tree and a set of scars that Jeffreys still bears today. “You learn science very fast that way,” he says, “but it was quite fun.”