Saturday, August 9, 2014

Royal Society honoured the geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys with Copley Medal 2014

The geneticist Prof Sir Alec Jeffreys who discovered DNA fingerprinting in 1984, was awarded with Copley Medal 2014 by Royal Society of London. He received the award for his great work in variation and mutation of human genome.

His work, in discovering the method for identifying the individuals with their DNA, helped the forensic departments to solve the questions of identity and kinship.

The method was used for the first time in 1985 to settle an immigration dispute. It was commercialized in 1987. Until then all tests were run in Prof Jeffreys' own lab at the University of Leicester.

About Copley Medal
• Royal Society of London started awarding this medal in 1731 and is treated as the oldest Science prize.
• It was awarded 170 years earlier to the first Noble prize awarded in 1901.
• Sir Albert Einstien, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday and Stephen Hawking were one of many recipients of this award for their Scientific Research.
• Noble Prize winning Physicist Prof Sir Andre Geim got the award for 2013 for his pioneering part of research into Graphene.
• British biochemist Dorothy Hodgkin awarded by this medal in 1976 remains the only woman awardee.

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