DNA fingerprinting announced as recipient of 2010 Edinburgh Medal

Inventor of DNA fingerprinting announced as recipient of 2010 Edinburgh Medal. Geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys to receive prestigious award

The recipient of the 22nd Edinburgh Medal was announced today as Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, one of the first scientists to discover inherited variation in human DNA. Sir Alec went on to invent DNA fingerprinting, showing how it could be used to resolve issues of identity and kinship.

Originally an academic curiosity, this has rapidly developed into a technology that has impacted directly on the lives of many millions of people worldwide, being used as the basis for a number of DNA databases, both in the UK and abroad. Sir Alec supports his work with an outspoken commitment to ensuring that these techniques are engaged for the greater social good whilst upholding the civil liberties of the individual.

Whilst having no regrets over the development of the DNA profiling, Sir Alec does have strong reservations as to how authorities are using the information, particularly the long term storage of information on the English National DNA Database.

Speaking at a House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Meeting earlier this year, Sir Alec said England and Wales should follow Scotland’s lead, where police only retain the DNA profiles of innocent people under specific circumstances, with those accused of sexual assaults having their profiles held for a maximum of five years. The English system currently allows storage of DNA profiles of anyone arrested (but not necessarily charged) for up to six years.

Prof. 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. His current work concentrates on developing new approaches to analysing variation and mutation in human chromosomes.

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.

The Edinburgh Medal is supported by the City of Edinburgh Council and will be awarded at a prestigious ceremony on Wednesday 14th April 2010 during the Edinburgh International Science Festival.
Sir Alec said “I am absolutely delighted to be this year’s recipient of the Edinburgh Medal. This is a huge honour and a wonderful recognition of DNA fingerprinting that will give great pleasure to the many people involved in the field of DNA-based identification.”

Dr Simon Gage, Director of the Edinburgh International Science Festival said “A sample of your DNA is so much more than a fingerprint. Beyond helping to identify you it can offer an insight into your current and future health and of course your ancestry. So the wholesale storing of the public’s DNA, whether it is by the police or doctors, is a step we need to consider carefully. It is an honour for us that Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, the pioneer of DNA fingerprinting and a scientist who has kept alive the public debate about whose DNA should be stored, has accepted the Edinburgh Medal.”

The Rt. Hon. George Grubb, Lord Lieutenant and Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh, said: “Sir Alec Jeffreys’ scientific accomplishments are quite astonishing. His pioneering work in the field of DNA fingerprinting has established his name for posterity and continues to impact directly on the lives of many millions of people across the world. It is a tremendous honour to present Sir Alec with the Edinburgh Medal.”

The Edinburgh Medal is a prestigious award given each year to men and women of science and technology whose professional achievements are judged to have made a significant contribution to the understanding and well-being of humanity.

The Medal will be awarded at a ceremony on Wednesday 14th April 2010 which will be followed by the Edinburgh Medal Address by Sir Alec, where he will discuss the techniques for DNA-based identification, which emerged completely by accident for research in the 1980s on gene evolution, and ethics of how this process could and should be used.

Tickets for the event are available from www.sciencefestival.co.uk or 0131 553 0322.

The first Edinburgh Medallist in 1989 was the theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Abdus Salam, of the subsequent nineteen Medallists three have gone on to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

For further information please contact: Frances Sutton, Edinburgh International Science Festival Press Office on 07841 579481 or media@scifest.co.uk

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