Overall, this study's artificial genomic DNA, which kept copying itself using self-encoded proteins and made its sequence better on its own, is a good starting point for making more complex artificial cells. By adding the genes needed for transcription and translation to artificial genomic DNA, it may be possible in the future to make artificial cells that can grow on their own when fed small molecules like amino acids and nucleotides. Using living organisms to make useful things, like drugs and food, would be more stable and easier to control in these artificial cells. [ 93 ]


On July 7, 2008, the American chemical society reported that Japanese chemists have created the world's first DNA molecule comprised nearly completely of synthetic components.


A nano-particle based artificial transcription factor for gene regulation:


Nano Script is a nanoparticle-based artificial transcription factor that is supposed to replicate the structure and function of TFs. On gold nanoparticles, functional peptides and tiny molecules referred to as synthetic transcription factors, which imitate the various TF domains, were attached to create Nano Script. We show that Nano Script localizes to the nucleus and begins transcription of a reporter plasmid by an amount more than 15-fold. Moreover, Nano Script can successfully transcribe targeted genes onto endogenous DNA in a nonviral manner. [ 94 ]


Three different fluorophores—red, green, and blue—were carefully fixed on the DNA rod surface to provide spatial information and create a nanoscale barcode. Epifluorescence and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy reliably deciphered spatial information between fluorophores. By moving the three fluorophores on the DNA rod, this nanoscale barcode created 216 fluorescence patterns. [ 95 ]


DNA testing has been used to establish the right of succession to British titles. [ 132 ]


Cases:


DNA: The Story of Life  is a four-part  Channel 4  documentary series on the discovery of  DNA , broadcast in 2003.


The series was broadcast to celebrate fifty years since the 1953 discovery. The first episode was broadcast on Saturday March 8, 2003 at 7pm.


It covered the discovery of DNA in 1953. [ 1 ]  Maurice Wilkins and his involvement with the  Manhattan Project , speaking in his university office in London;  Linus Pauling 's son Peter, of  Caltech , now lived in Wales; Linus Pauling approached the discovery of the structure of DNA in a much more methodical rigid manner, perhaps in a plodding way, and Pauling was never one to take the same un-thought-through reckless gambles that Watson and Crick would take; but those ambitious reckless gambles of Watson and Crick would find the structure of DNA; the 1974 BBC documentary  The Race for the Double Helix ; Watson attended a lecture on the latest X-ray data on DNA at  Somerset House  in London in November 1951, with the project in Cambridge later producing their first DNA model on 28 November 1951; Sir  John Randall , head of the London project, telephoned  Lawrence Bragg  in Cambridge, with his displeasure at how Watson and Crick had borrowed London's DNA structure X-ray data, which resulted in Watson and Crick being chastened, and removed from their work on DNA structure at Cambridge; but at the London project, events were being often undermined by frosty wooden relationships, and a complete lack of human empathy, as believed  Raymond Gosling ; at Cambridge, biochemist  Erwin Chargaff , of  Columbia University , had dinner with Watson and Crick, and although he largely disliked the pair, he explained his  Chargaff's rules  to them, where equal amounts of  adenine  and  thymine  had been found, which had applied to all living cells; Linus Pauling writes to Wilkins, asking for recent X-ray photographs, but is unlucky; on 6 May 1952, [ 2 ]  the London project takes  Photo 51 , which indicated a helix structure; in December 1952, Linus Pauling produced his first rudimentary model of DNA, but it was not at all similar to DNA; Watson travelled to the London project again, on 30 January 1953, and whilst looking for any possible photographic X-ray data,  Wilkins  happily showed him the Photo 51, not realising the dramatic leap in understanding that this photo may have provided for Watson, who himself couldn't believe his luck; Wilkins was not disappointed that Watson had viewed this picture, as he was looking for more scientific collaboration anyway, anywhere that he could find it; in early 1953, Watson and Crick could again resume their DNA project at Cambridge, as Lawrence Bragg realised the need to find the structure before Pauling could discover it; Watson sees the hydrogen bonds between the DNA base pair structure;  Watson  was later the Director of  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory , and  Crick  later worked in  computational neuroscience .


The advances in  genetic engineering . [ 3 ]   Herb Boyer  studied bacteria in a California hospital; one morning he found a bacteria that could splice DNA, with enzymes (a  restriction endonuclease ); in March 1973 Boyer and  Stanley Norman Cohen  worked on an experiment to put a toad gene into a bacteria; the experiment worked, and the bacteria cell produced toad proteins;  Paul Berg , of  Stanford University  was attempting to splice cancer genes with bacteria (E.coli) genes; one of his PhD students gave a talk about her work, in a group with  Bob Pollack , of Columbia University, in attendance, who thought that such an experiment was unethical; Berg halted his work on genetic engineering, to examine any risks; the four-day  Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA  was held in February, in California, to look at possible risks; Alexander Capron of the  University of Pennsylvania , who attended the conference; Jim Watson equated the caution to the risk, to communism;  Sydney Brenner , of the University of Cambridge, to prove that the risk was low, himself drank genetically modified bacteria, mixed with milk; scientists would work in  biosafety level  4 laboratories;  Bob Swanson  contacted Herb Boyer, to form a company -  Genentech ;  Walter Gilbert  of  Harvard University  wanted to make synthetic  insulin ;  David Goeddel  joined Genentech, and chose to build the insulin molecule step by step; Gilbert was banned from Harvard, so moved to England to work at a biosafety P4 laboratory at  Porton Down  in  Wiltshire , to find the insulin gene; due to cross-contamination, but, after two years of work, he had found the gene of rat insulin instead; Genentech were the first to make synthetic insulin in bacteria; no Nobel prizes were awarded for the important genetic engineering discovery by Herb Boyer and his team;  David Ebersman  of Genentech.


Plant biologist   Rob Horsch , whose father James Robert Horsch was an electrical engineer on the  Apollo programme , wanted to modify crop genes, so approached  Monsanto , working in a modest laboratory, at the  Chesterfield Village Research Center  in  Chesterfield, Missouri , on  Agrobacterium tumefaciens  on  petunia  plants; he next worked on a  genetically modified potato , first growing one on 2 June 1987; after proving it could be done, Horsch worked on cotton, more on the potato, wheat, soya, corn, and rice, to give pest resistance; current work includes crops with more vitamins.


The 1990s and the start of  human genome project . [ 4 ]  Sir  Alec Jeffreys , and his discovery on 17 September 1984 at the  University of Leicester  Department of Genetics, and how his wife Sue thought of possible applications; the  Colin Pitchfork  case in 1988;  Fred Sanger  FRS, of the  MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology , and reading the  nucleotide sequence ; he found a  method  by chemical markers, which attached to the different nucleotides; Sanger found the 5,000 nucleotide-sequence of a virus, after four years; Sanger invented  DNA sequencing ; Jeffreys found the portion ( minisatellites ) of human DNA where that same DNA sequencing, of Fred Sanger, could be best applied; but the human DNA sequence had around 3 billion nucleotide base pairs.


Jim Watson invited scientists to a meeting, in 1986, to discuss possibly sequencing the  human genome ;  David Botstein  was against any sequencing, but physicist  Walter Gilbert  was for the genome sequencing, estimating that it would cost £3bn over 30 years, and one scientist could sequence around 100,000 base pairs in one year; the  US Congress  approved the project funding in 1990, after Jim Watson put the case;  Francis Collins  took over the project from 1992; the repeated parts of the DNA sequence, that Alec Jeffreys found, could divide the human genome DNA up into parts, so that sixteen laboratories, around the world, sequenced one separate region, to finish in 2005; one third of the human genome would be sequenced at the Sanger Centre (now the  Wellcome Sanger Institute ) in  South Cambridgeshire , headed in the UK by Sir  John Sulston ; by 1998, one-third had been sequenced, but  Craig Venter  thought that progress was much too slow, and would be quicker with  shotgun sequencing , and computer reading of the sequence of bases;  Leroy Hood  of the  Institute for Systems Biology , with Michael Hunkapiller of  Applied Biosystems ; on 10 May 1998, Venter announced that he would go it alone, as he thought that he could complete it by 2001; Venter was met by a torrent of verbal abuse from Jim Watson, at a meeting, who thought that the idea of a private company holding the DNA information was completely unacceptable; Venter had 300 DNA sequence-reading robots made, for his  Celera Genomics  company, which read DNA from five people, run by  Tony White ; Jim Watson returned to the US Congress to get more funding, and the public project bought £300,000  DNA sequencing machines  from Celera.


With the new machines, 4 million base pairs could be sequenced, by one laboratory, in one day; a main sequencing operation was at the  Whitehead Institute  at MIT, run by mathematician  Eric Lander ; Greek scientist  Aristides Patrinos , who arranged for Collins and Venter to socially meet; the two sides agreed to make a joint announcement on 26 March 2000; software developers  Jim Kent , for the public project, and  Gene Myers , for Celera, had to reassemble the data from the many laboratories; but someone had to work out where the protein gene sequences were, so  Ewan Birney  FRS at the Sanger Centre in  Cambridgeshire  developed his  Ensembl genome database project  (with  Tim Hubbard  and  Michele Clamp ), to find the individual genes; 48 hours before the announcement on Monday 26 March, the two teams did not know how many genes that there were; the teams estimated around 38,000; around 25% of the genome was found to be  gene deserts , and people shared largely the same DNA data - with only around 1 in 1200 base pairs that differed.


The last episode was broadcast on Sunday 30 March 2003 at 8pm.; [ 5 ]   Mary-Claire King , of  University of California, Berkeley , was puzzled as to why the breast cancer risk appeared to be mostly inherited; it would be the  BRCA1  gene; she asked  David Botstein , of MIT, for assistance; he looked at the spread of known genetic markers across the chromosomes of generations of families; if the markers were not found right across the generations, that part of the chromosome was not probably causing the  BRCA mutation ; different families' chromosomes were checked for 173 common genetic markers (known as  restriction fragment length polymorphisms ), which later led to identifying  chromosome 17  in 1990; Mary Claire- King needed family information over many generations; she found it at the  Family History Library  in  Utah , kept in immaculate condition by the Mormons ( The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints );  Mark Skolnick  also had looked at the Mormon family trees; in October 1987 Mary Claire-King appealed, on local television networks, for family histories, it would take seventeen years to find the BRCA1 gene; around 600,000 women in the US carried the BRCA1 gene; Barbara Weber of the University of Michigan; Mark Skolnick founded  Myriad Genetics , to look for the BRCA1 gene, and his company found the mutation;  Per Lønning , of  Haukeland University Hospital  in Norway, and son of  Per Lønning , had collected cancer specimens, for possible later understanding of cancer genetics; David Botstein and  Patrick O. Brown , who invented the  DNA microarray ;  Brian Druker  of the  Oregon Health & Science University Hospital  (OHSU), who started researching cancer genetics from 1979, and worked with  Novartis  to make  Imatinib ;  Michael Wigler , of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, was finding cancer-causing genes


The series was repeated ten years later on  More4 .


A fifth part of the series was added to a DVD in 2004, entitled  DNA: The Story of the Pioneers Who Changed the World


David Dugan  was the producer, with  Joe Bini  the editor. It was a joint production with  WNET .


The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA  is an autobiographical account of the discovery of the  double helix  structure of  DNA  written by  James D. Watson  and published in 1968. It has earned both critical and public praise, along with continuing controversy about credit for the Nobel award and attitudes towards female scientists at the time of the discovery.


Watson is a U.S. molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with  Francis Crick .


In 1998, the  Modern Library  placed  The Double Helix  at number 7 on its list of  the 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century . In 2012,  The Double Helix  was named as one of the 88 "Books That Shaped America" by the Library of Congress.


Though an important book about an immensely important subject, it was and remains a controversial account. Though it was originally slated to be published by  Harvard University Press , Watson's home university, Harvard dropped the arrangement after protestations from  Francis Crick  and  Maurice Wilkins , [ 1 ]  co-discoverers of the structure of DNA, and it was published instead by  Atheneum  in the United States and  Weidenfeld & Nicolson  in the UK.


The intimate first-person memoir about scientific discovery was unusual for its time. The book has been hailed for its highly personal view of scientific work, though has been criticised as caring only about the glory of priority and the author is claimed to be willing to appropriate data from others surreptitiously in order to obtain it. It has also been criticized as being disagreeably sexist towards  Rosalind Franklin , another participant in the discovery, who was deceased by the time Watson's book was written.


The events described in the book were dramatized in a BBC television program  Life Story  (known as  The Race for the Double Helix  in the U.S.).


The book leaned heavily on personalities, and some, like  Rosalind Franklin , were treated cartoonishly.


A 1980  Norton Critical Edition  of  The Double Helix  edited by  Gunther Stent , analyzed the events surrounding its initial publication. It presents a selection of both positive and negative reviews of the book, by such figures as  Philip Morrison ,  Richard Lewontin ,  Alex Comfort ,  Jacob Bronowski , and more in-depth analyses by  Peter Medawar ,  Robert K. Merton , and  Andre Lwoff .  Erwin Chargaff  declined permission to reprint his unsympathetic review from the March 29, 1968, issue of  Science , but letters in response from  Max Perutz , Maurice Wilkins, and Watson are printed.  Also included are retrospectives from a 1974 edition of  Nature  written by Francis Crick and  Linus Pauling , and an analysis of Franklin's work by her student  Aaron Klug . The Norton edition concludes with the 1953 papers on DNA structure as published in  Nature .


In the book  Rosalind Franklin and DNA , author  Anne Sayre  is very critical of Watson's account. She claims that Watson's book did not give a balanced description of  Rosalind Franklin  and the nature of her interactions with Maurice Wilkins at King's College, London. Sayre's book raises doubts about the ethics of how Watson and Crick used some of Franklin's results and whether adequate credit was given to her. Watson had very limited contact with Franklin during the time she worked on DNA. By providing more information about Franklin's life than was included in Watson's book, it was possible for Sayre to provide a different perspective on the role Franklin played in Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. (See:  King's College London DNA Controversy .)


In the book's preface, Watson explains that he is describing his impressions at the time of the events, and not at the time he wrote the book. In the epilogue Watson writes; "Since my initial impressions about [Franklin], both scientific and personal (as recorded in the early pages of this book) were often wrong I want to say something here about her achievements." He goes on to describe her superb work, and, despite this, the enormous barriers she faced as a woman in the field of science. He also acknowledged that it took years to overcome their bickering before he could appreciate Franklin's generosity and integrity.


An annotated and illustrated version of the book, edited by Alex Gann and Jan Witkowski, was published in November 2012 by  Simon & Schuster  in association with  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press . The new edition coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the award of the 1962  Nobel Prize  for physiology or medicine to  Francis Crick ,  James D. Watson  and  Maurice Wilkins . It contains over three hundred annotations on the events and characters portrayed, with facsimile letters and contemporary photographs, many previously unpublished. Their sources include newly discovered correspondence from Crick, the papers of Franklin, Pauling, and Wilkins, and they include a chapter dropped from the original edition that described Watson's holiday in the Italian Alps in 1952. The edition was favorably reviewed in  The New York Times  by  Nicholas Wade  who commented, "anyone seeking to understand modern biology and genomics could do much worse than start with the discovery of the structure of DNA, on which almost everything else is based. [ 2 ]  This edition includes several appendices, including letters by Crick and Watson giving the first account of the discovery, a previously unpublished chapter, an account of the controversy surrounding the publication, and the unsympathetic review by the late  Erwin Chargaff  from the March 29, 1968, issue of  Science , which he previously declined permission to reprint in the 1980  Norton Critical Edition  of  The Double Helix  edited by  Gunther Stent .


The book does not include the four press cuttings from the  News Chronicle ,  Varsity  and  The New York Times  (2) of May and June 1953 regarding the discovery of the structure of DNA, and  Crick's letter of 13th April 1967  is incomplete.


In 1987, the memoir was adapted as a 107-minute television docudrama called  Life Story  for the BBC, airing on  Horizon , the long-running British documentary television series on  BBC Two  that covers science and philosophy. The script was written by  William Nicholson , and it was produced and directed by  Mick Jackson .  Jeff Goldblum  starred as Watson, with  Tim Pigott-Smith  as  Francis Crick ,  Juliet Stevenson  as  Rosalind Franklin , and  Alan Howard  as  Maurice Wilkins .


The film won several awards in the UK and U.S., including the 1988  BAFTA  TV Award as the Best Single Drama.


Christian Hamel  (4 October 1955 – 15 August 2017) was a French Professor at the Institute for Neurosciences of  Montpellier , Hôpital Saint Eloi (INM) research unit INSERM 583 of the University. He studied  transduction , integration and disorders of sensory and motor systems with the ultimate goal of finding treatments for degeneration of the  retina  and  optic nerve . [ 1 ]


Hamel discovered and described in 1993 the  RPE65  protein. [ 2 ] [ 3 ]  Retinal pigment epithelium-specific 65 kDa protein is an enzyme in the vertebral visual pigment. [ 4 ]  The next year he mapped the RPE65 gene to human  chromosome 1  (mouse chromosome 3) and refined it to 1p31 by  fluorescence  in situ  hybridization . [ 5 ]  His research interests were to find the causes of inherited diseases of the retina and optic nerve. [ 6 ] [ self-published source? ]


Genetic engineering is the science of manipulating genetic material of an organism. The concept of genetic engineering was first proposed by  Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky  in 1934. [ 1 ]  The first artificial genetic modification accomplished using biotechnology was transgenesis, the process of transferring genes from one organism to another,  first accomplished by  Herbert Boyer  and  Stanley Cohen  in 1973. It was the result of a series of advancements in techniques that allowed the direct modification of the  genome . Important advances included the discovery of  restriction enzymes  and  DNA ligases , the ability to design  plasmids  and technologies like  polymerase chain reaction  and  sequencing .  Transformation  of the DNA into a host organism was accomplished with the invention of  biolistics ,  Agrobacterium -mediated recombination  and  microinjection .
The first  genetically modified animal  was a  mouse  created in 1974 by  Rudolf Jaenisch . In 1976, the technology was commercialised, with the advent of  genetically modified bacteria  that produced  somatostatin , followed by  insulin  in 1978. In 1983, an antibiotic resistant gene was inserted into tobacco, leading to the first  genetically engineered plant . Advances followed that allowed scientists to manipulate and add genes to a variety of different organisms and induce a range of different effects. Plants were first commercialized with virus resistant tobacco released in China in 1992. The first  genetically modified food  was the  Flavr Savr  tomato marketed in 1994. By 2010, 29 countries had planted commercialized biotech crops. In 2000 a paper published in  Science  introduced  golden rice , the first food developed with increased nutrient value.


Genetic engineering is the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using certain biotechnology techniques that have only existed since the 1970s. [ 3 ]  Human directed genetic manipulation was occurring much earlier, beginning with the  domestication  of plants and animals through  artificial selection . The  dog  is believed to be the first animal domesticated, possibly arising from a common ancestor of the  grey wolf , [ 2 ]  with archeological evidence dating to about 12,000 BC. [ 4 ]  Other carnivores domesticated in prehistoric times include the cat, which cohabited with human 9,500 years ago. [ 5 ]   Archeological evidence suggests sheep, cattle, pigs and goats were domesticated between 9,000 BC and 8,000 BC in the  Fertile Crescent . [ 6 ]


The first evidence of plant domestication comes from  emmer  and  einkorn wheat  found in  pre-Pottery Neolithic A  villages in Southwest Asia dated about 10,500 to 10,100 BC. [ 7 ]   The  Fertile Crescent  of Western Asia,  Egypt , and  India  were sites of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild. Independent development of agriculture occurred in northern and southern China, Africa's  Sahel ,  New Guinea  and several regions of the Americas. [ 8 ]  The eight  Neolithic founder crops  ( emmer wheat ,  einkorn wheat ,  barley ,  peas ,  lentils ,  bitter vetch ,  chick peas  and  flax ) had all appeared by about 7,000 BC. [ 9 ]   Horticulture  first appears in the  Levant  during the  Chalcolithic  period about 6,800 to 6,300 BC. [ 10 ]  Due to the soft tissues, archeological evidence for early vegetables is scarce. The earliest vegetable remains have been found in Egyptian caves that date back to the  2nd millennium BC . [ 11 ]


Selective breeding  of domesticated plants was once the main way early farmers shaped organisms to suit their needs.  Charles Darwin  described three types of selection: methodical selection, wherein humans deliberately select for particular characteristics; unconscious selection, wherein a characteristic is selected simply because it is desirable; and  natural selection , wherein a trait that helps an organism survive better is passed on. [ 12 ] : 25    Early breeding relied on unconscious and natural selection. The introduction of methodical selection is unknown. [ 12 ] : 25   Common characteristics that were bred into domesticated plants include grains that did not shatter to allow easier harvesting, uniform ripening, shorter lifespans that translate to faster growing, loss of toxic compounds, and productivity. [ 12 ] : 27–30   Some plants, like the Banana, were able to be propagated by  vegetative cloning . Offspring often did not contain seeds, and was therefore sterile. However, these offspring were usually juicier and larger. Propagation through cloning allows these mutant varieties to be cultivated despite their lack of seeds. [ 12 ] : 31


Hybridization was another way that rapid changes in plant's makeup were introduced. It often increased vigor in plants, and combined desirable traits together. Hybridization most likely first occurred when humans first grew similar, yet slightly different plants in close proximity. [ 12 ] : 32    Triticum aestivum , wheat used in baking bread, is an  allopolyploid . Its creation is the result of two separate hybridization events. [ 13 ]


Grafting  can transfer  chloroplasts ,  mitochondrial DNA  and the entire  cell nucleus  containing the  genome  to potentially make a new species making grafting a form of natural genetic engineering. [ 14 ]


X-rays were first used to deliberately  mutate plants  in 1927. Between 1927 and 2007, more than 2,540 genetically mutated plant varieties had been produced using x-rays. [ 15 ]


Various genetic discoveries have been essential in the development of genetic engineering.  Genetic inheritance  was first discovered by  Gregor Mendel  in 1865 following experiments crossing peas. Although largely ignored for 34 years he provided the first evidence of hereditary segregation and independent assortment. [ 16 ]  In 1889  Hugo de Vries  came up with the name "(pan)gene" after postulating that particles are responsible for inheritance of characteristics [ 17 ]  and the term "genetics" was coined by  William Bateson  in 1905. [ 18 ]  In 1928  Frederick Griffith   proved  the existence of a "transforming principle" involved in inheritance, which  Avery, MacLeod and McCarty  later (1944) identified as  DNA .  Edward Lawrie Tatum  and  George Wells Beadle  developed the  central dogma  that genes code for proteins in 1941. The  double helix  structure of DNA was identified by  James Watson  and  Francis Crick  in 1953.


As well as discovering how DNA works, tools had to be developed that allowed it to be manipulated. In 1970  Hamilton Smith's  lab discovered  restriction enzymes  that allowed DNA to be cut at specific places and separated out on an  electrophoresis gel . This enabled scientists to isolate genes from an organism's genome. [ 19 ]   DNA ligases , that join broken DNA together, had been discovered earlier in 1967 [ 20 ]  and by combining the two enzymes it was possible to "cut and paste" DNA sequences to create  recombinant DNA .  Plasmids , discovered in 1952, [ 21 ]  became important  tools  for transferring information between cells and  replicating  DNA sequences.  Frederick Sanger  developed a method for sequencing DNA in 1977, greatly increasing the genetic information available to researchers.  Polymerase chain reaction  (PCR), developed by  Kary Mullis  in 1983, allowed small sections of DNA to be amplified and aided identification and isolation of genetic material.


As well as manipulating the DNA, techniques had to be developed for its insertion (known as  transformation ) into an organism's genome. Griffiths experiment had already shown that some bacteria had  the ability to naturally take up and express foreign DNA . Artificial competence was induced in  Escherichia coli  in 1970 when  Morton Mandel  and  Akiko Higa  showed that it could take up  bacteriophage λ  after treatment with calcium chloride solution (CaCl 2 ). [ 22 ]  Two years later, Stanley Cohen showed that CaCl 2  treatment was also effective for uptake of plasmid DNA. [ 23 ]  Transformation using  electroporation  was developed in the late 1980s, increasing the efficiency and bacterial range. [ 24 ]  In 1907 a bacterium that caused plant tumors,  Agrobacterium tumefaciens , was discovered and in the early 1970s the tumor inducing agent was found to be a DNA plasmid called the  Ti plasmid . [ 25 ]  By removing the genes in the plasmid that caused the tumor and adding in novel genes researchers were able to infect plants with  A. tumefaciens  and let the bacteria insert their chosen DNA into the genomes of the plants. [ 26 ]


In 1972  Paul Berg  used restriction enzymes and DNA ligases to create the first  recombinant DNA  molecules. He combined DNA from the  monkey virus  SV40  with that of the  lambda virus . [ 27 ]  Herbert Boyer and Stanley Norman Cohen took Berg's work a step further and introduced recombinant DNA into a bacterial cell. Cohen was researching plasmids, while Boyers work involved restriction enzymes. They recognised the complementary nature of their work and teamed up in 1972. Together they found a restriction enzyme that cut the  pSC101  plasmid at a single point and were able to insert and ligate a gene that conferred resistance to the  kanamycin  antibiotic into the gap. Cohen had previously devised a method where bacteria could be induced to take up a plasmid and using this they were able to create a bacterium that survived in the presence of the kanamycin. This represented the first genetically modified organism. They repeated experiments showing that other genes could be expressed in bacteria, including one from the toad  Xenopus laevis , the first cross kingdom transformation. [ 28 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ]


In 1974  Rudolf Jaenisch  created a  transgenic mouse  by introducing foreign DNA into its embryo, making it the world's first  transgenic animal . [ 31 ] [ 32 ]  Jaenisch was studying mammalian cells infected with  simian virus 40  (SV40) when he happened to read a paper from  Beatrice Mintz  describing the generation of  chimera mice . He took his SV40 samples to Mintz's lab and injected them into early mouse embryos expecting tumours to develop. The mice appeared normal, but after using  radioactive probes  he discovered that the virus had integrated itself into the mice genome. [ 33 ]  However the mice did not pass the  transgene  to their offspring. In 1981 the laboratories of Frank Ruddle, Frank Constantini and Elizabeth Lacy injected purified DNA into a single-cell mouse embryo and showed transmission of the genetic material to subsequent generations. [ 34 ] [ 35 ]


The first genetically engineered plant was tobacco, reported in 1983. [ 36 ]  It was developed by  Michael W. Bevan ,  Richard B. Flavell  and  Mary-Dell Chilton  by creating a  chimeric gene  that joined an antibiotic resistant gene to the T1 plasmid from  Agrobacterium . The tobacco was infected with  Agrobacterium  transformed with this plasmid resulting in the chimeric gene being inserted into the plant. Through  tissue culture  techniques a single tobacco cell was selected that contained the gene and a new plant grown from it. [ 37 ]


The development of genetic engineering technology led to concerns in the scientific community about potential risks. The development of a regulatory framework concerning genetic engineering began in 1975, at  Asilomar , California. The  Asilomar meeting  recommended a set of guidelines regarding the cautious use of recombinant technology and any products resulting from that technology. [ 38 ]  The Asilomar recommendations were voluntary, but in 1976 the  US National Institute of Health  (NIH) formed a recombinant DNA advisory committee. [ 39 ]  This was followed by other regulatory offices (the  United States Department of Agriculture  (USDA),  Environmental Protection Agency  (EPA) and  Food and Drug Administration  (FDA), effectively making all recombinant DNA research tightly regulated in the US. [ 40 ]


In 1982 the  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development  (OECD) released a report into the potential hazards of releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment as the first transgenic plants were being developed. [ 41 ]  As the technology improved and genetically organisms moved from  model organisms  to potential commercial products the US established a committee at the  Office of Science and Technology  (OSTP) to develop mechanisms to regulate the developing technology. [ 40 ]  In 1986 the OSTP assigned regulatory approval of genetically modified plants in the US to the USDA, FDA and EPA. [ 42 ]  In the late 1980s and early 1990s, guidance on assessing the safety of genetically engineered plants and food emerged from organizations including the FAO and WHO. [ 43 ] [ 44 ] [ 45 ] [ 46 ]


The European Union first introduced laws requiring GMO's to be labelled in 1997. [ 47 ]   In 2013 Connecticut became the first state to enact a labeling law in the US, although it would not take effect until other states followed suit. [ 48 ]


The ability to insert, alter or remove genes in  model organisms  allowed scientists to study the genetic elements of human diseases. [ 49 ]   Genetically modified mice  were created in 1984 that carried cloned  oncogenes  that predisposed them to developing cancer. [ 50 ]  The technology has also been used to generate mice with genes  knocked out . The first recorded  knockout mouse  was created by  Mario R. Capecchi ,  Martin Evans  and  Oliver Smithies  in 1989. In 1992  oncomice  with  tumor suppressor genes  knocked out were generated. [ 50 ]  Creating  Knockout rats  is much harder and only became possible in 2003. [ 51 ] [ 52 ]


After the discovery of  microRNA  in 1993, [ 53 ]   RNA interference  (RNAi) has been used to silence an organism's genes. [ 54 ]   By modifying an organism to express microRNA targeted to its endogenous genes, researchers have been able to knockout or partially reduce gene function in a range of species. The ability to partially reduce gene function has allowed the study of genes that are lethal when completely knocked out. Other advantages of using RNAi include the availability of inducible and tissue specific knockout. [ 55 ]  In 2007 microRNA targeted to insect and  nematode  genes was expressed in plants, leading to suppression when they fed on the transgenic plant, potentially creating a new way to control pests. [ 56 ]  Targeting endogenous microRNA expression has allowed further fine tuning of gene expression, supplementing the more traditional gene knock out approach. [ 57 ]


Genetic engineering has been used to produce proteins derived from humans and other sources in organisms that normally cannot synthesize these proteins. Human insulin-synthesising bacteria were developed in 1979 and were first used as a treatment in 1982. [ 58 ]  In 1988 the first human antibodies were produced in plants. [ 59 ]  In 2000  Vitamin A -enriched  golden rice , was the first food with increased nutrient value. [ 60 ]


As not all plant cells were susceptible to infection by  A. tumefaciens  other methods were developed, including  electroporation ,  micro-injection [ 61 ]  and particle bombardment with a  gene gun  (invented in 1987). [ 62 ] [ 63 ]  In the 1980s techniques were developed to introduce isolated  chloroplasts  back into a plant cell that had its cell wall removed. With the introduction of the gene gun in 1987 it became possible to integrate foreign genes into a  chloroplast . [ 64 ]


Genetic transformation has become very efficient in some model organisms. In 1998 genetically modified seeds were produced in  Arabidopsis thaliana  by simply dipping the flowers in an  Agrobacterium  solution. [ 65 ]  The range of plants that can be transformed has increased as  tissue culture  techniques have been developed for different species.


The first transgenic livestock were produced in 1985, [ 66 ]  by micro-injecting foreign DNA into rabbit, sheep and pig eggs. [ 67 ]  The first animal to synthesise transgenic proteins in their milk were mice, [ 68 ]  engineered to produce human tissue plasminogen activator. [ 69 ]  This technology was applied to sheep, pigs, cows and other livestock. [ 68 ]


In 2010 scientists at the  J. Craig Venter Institute  announced that they had created the first synthetic bacterial  genome . The researchers added the new genome to bacterial cells and selected for cells that contained the new genome. To do this the cells undergoes a process called resolution, where during bacterial cell division one new cell receives the original DNA genome of the bacteria, whilst the other receives the new synthetic genome. When this cell replicates it uses the synthetic genome as its template. The resulting bacterium the researchers developed, named  Synthia , was the world's first  synthetic life  form. [ 70 ] [ 71 ]


In 2014 a bacterium was developed that replicated a  plasmid  containing an unnatural  base pair . This required altering the bacterium so it could import the unnatural  nucleotides  and then efficiently replicate them. The plasmid retained the unnatural base pairs when it doubled an estimated 99.4% of the time. [ 72 ]  This is the first organism engineered to use an expanded genetic alphabet. [ 73 ]


In 2015  CRISPR  and  TALENs  was used to modify plant genomes. Chinese labs used it to create a fungus-resistant wheat and boost rice yields, while a U.K. group used it to tweak a barley gene that could help produce drought-resistant varieties. When used to precisely remove material from DNA without adding genes from other species, the result is not subject the lengthy and expensive regulatory process associated with GMOs. While CRISPR may use foreign DNA to aid the editing process, the second generation of edited plants contain none of that DNA. Researchers celebrated the acceleration because it may allow them to "keep up" with rapidly evolving pathogens. The U.S. Department of Agriculture stated that some examples of gene-edited corn, potatoes and soybeans are not subject to existing regulations. As of 2016, other review bodies had yet to make statements. [ 74 ]


In 1976  Genentech , the first genetic engineering company was founded by Herbert Boyer and  Robert Swanson  and a year later the company produced a human protein ( somatostatin ) in  E.coli . Genentech announced the production of genetically engineered human  insulin  in 1978. [ 75 ]  In 1980 the  U.S. Supreme Court  in the  Diamond v. Chakrabarty  case ruled that genetically altered life could be patented. [ 76 ]  The insulin produced by bacteria, branded  humulin , was approved for release by the  Food and Drug Administration  in 1982. [ 77 ]
In 1983 a biotech company, Advanced Genetic Sciences (AGS) applied for U.S. government authorization to perform field tests with the ice-minus strain of  P. syringae  to protect crops from frost, but environmental groups and protestors delayed the field tests for four years with legal challenges. [ 78 ]   In 1987 the ice-minus strain of  P. syringae  became the first  genetically modified organism (GMO)  to be released into the environment [ 79 ]  when a strawberry field and a potato field in California were sprayed with it. [ 80 ]  Both test fields were attacked by activist groups the night before the tests occurred: "The world's first trial site attracted the world's first field trasher". [ 79 ]


The first genetically modified crop plant was produced in 1982, an antibiotic-resistant tobacco plant. [ 81 ]  The first field trials of  genetically engineered plants  occurred in France and the US in 1986, tobacco plants were engineered to be resistant to  herbicides . [ 82 ]  In 1987  Plant Genetic Systems , founded by  Marc Van Montagu  and  Jeff Schell , was the first company to genetically engineer insect-resistant plants by incorporating genes that produced insecticidal proteins from  Bacillus thuringiensis  (Bt) into  tobacco . [ 83 ]


Genetically modified microbial enzymes were the first application of  genetically modified organisms  in food production and were approved in 1988 by the US  Food and Drug Administration . [ 84 ]  In the early 1990s, recombinant  chymosin  was approved for use in several countries. [ 84 ] [ 85 ]   Cheese had typically been made using the enzyme complex  rennet  that had been extracted from cows' stomach lining. Scientists modified  bacteria  to produce chymosin, which was also able to clot milk, resulting in  cheese curds . [ 86 ]
The People's Republic of China was the first country to commercialize transgenic plants, introducing a virus-resistant tobacco in 1992. [ 87 ]  In 1994  Calgene  attained approval to commercially release the  Flavr Savr  tomato, a tomato engineered to have a longer shelf life. [ 88 ]  Also in 1994, the European Union approved tobacco engineered to be resistant to the herbicide  bromoxynil , making it the first genetically engineered crop commercialized in Europe. [ 89 ]  In 1995 Bt Potato was approved safe by the  Environmental Protection Agency , after having been approved by the FDA, making it the first pesticide producing crop to be approved in the US. [ 90 ]  In 1996  a total of 35 approvals had been granted to commercially grow 8 transgenic crops and one flower crop (carnation), with 8 different traits in 6 countries plus the EU. [ 82 ]


By 2010, 29 countries had planted commercialized biotech crops and a further 31 countries had granted regulatory approval for transgenic crops to be imported. [ 91 ]  In 2013  Robert Fraley  ( Monsanto 's executive vice president and chief technology officer), Marc Van Montagu and Mary-Dell Chilton were awarded the  World Food Prize  for improving the "quality, quantity or availability" of food in the world. [ 92 ]


The first genetically modified animal to be commercialised was the  GloFish , a  Zebra fish  with a  fluorescent gene  added that allows it to glow in the dark under  ultraviolet light . [ 93 ]  The first genetically modified animal to be approved for food use was  AquAdvantage salmon  in 2015. [ 94 ]  The salmon were transformed with a  growth hormone -regulating gene from a  Pacific Chinook salmon  and a promoter from an  ocean pout  enabling it to grow year-round instead of only during spring and summer. [ 95 ]


Opposition and support for the use of genetic engineering has existed since the technology was developed. [ 79 ]  After  Arpad Pusztai  went public with  research  he was conducting in 1998 the public opposition to genetically modified food increased. [ 96 ]  Opposition continued following controversial and publicly debated papers published in 1999 and  2013  that claimed negative environmental and health impacts from  genetically modified crops . [ 97 ] [ 98 ]


Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher   FRS  (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British  polymath  who was active as a  mathematician ,  statistician ,  biologist ,  geneticist , and academic. [ 5 ]  For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science" [ 6 ] [ 7 ]  and "the single most important figure in 20th century statistics". [ 8 ]  In genetics, Fisher was the one to most comprehensively combine the ideas of  Gregor Mendel  and  Charles Darwin , [ 9 ]  as his work used  mathematics  to combine  Mendelian genetics  and  natural selection ; this contributed to the revival of  Darwinism  in the early 20th-century revision of the theory of  evolution  known as the  modern synthesis . For his contributions to biology,  Richard Dawkins  declared Fisher to be the greatest of Darwin's successors. [ 10 ]  He is also considered one of the founding fathers of  Neo-Darwinism . [ 11 ] [ 12 ]  According to statistician  Jeffrey T. Leek , Fisher is the most influential scientist of all time based on the number of citations of his contributions. [ 13 ]


From 1919, he worked at the  Rothamsted Experimental Station  for 14 years; [ 14 ]  there, he analyzed its immense body of data from crop experiments since the 1840s, and developed the  analysis of variance  (ANOVA). He established his reputation there in the following years as a  biostatistician . Fisher also made fundamental contributions to  multivariate statistics . [ 15 ]


Fisher founded  quantitative genetics , [ 16 ] [ 17 ]  and together with  J. B. S. Haldane  and  Sewall Wright , is known as one of the three principal founders of  population genetics . [ 18 ]  Fisher outlined  Fisher's principle , the  Fisherian runaway , the  sexy son hypothesis  theories of  sexual selection ,  parental investment , and also pioneered  linkage analysis  and  gene mapping . [ 19 ] [ 20 ]  On the other hand, as the founder of  modern statistics , [ 21 ] [ 22 ]  Fisher made countless contributions, including creating the modern method of  maximum likelihood  and deriving the properties of maximum likelihood estimators, [ 23 ]   fiducial inference , the derivation of various sampling distributions, founding the principles of the  design of experiments , and much more. Fisher's famous 1921 paper alone has been described as "arguably the most influential article" on  mathematical statistics  in the twentieth century, and equivalent to "Darwin on  evolutionary biology ,  Gauss  on  number theory ,  Kolmogorov  on  probability , and  Adam Smith  on  economics ", [ 24 ]  and is credited with completely revolutionizing statistics. [ 25 ]  Due to his influence and numerous fundamental contributions, he has been described as "the most original evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century" and as "the greatest statistician of all time". [ 26 ]  His work is further credited with later initiating the  Human Genome Project . [ 27 ]  Fisher also contributed to the understanding of  human blood groups . [ 28 ]


Fisher has also been praised as a pioneer of the  Information Age . [ 29 ]  His work on a mathematical theory of information ran parallel to the work of  Claude Shannon  and  Norbert Wiener , though based on statistical theory. [ 30 ] [ 31 ]  A concept to have come out of his work is that of  Fisher information . [ 32 ]  He also had ideas about  social sciences , [ 12 ]  which have been described as a "foundation for evolutionary social sciences". [ 33 ]


Fisher held strong views on  race  and  eugenics , insisting on racial differences. Although he was clearly a eugenicist, there is some debate as to whether Fisher supported  scientific racism  (see  Ronald Fisher § Views on race ). He was the  Galton Professor  of Eugenics at  University College London  and editor of the  Annals of Eugenics . [ 34 ]


Fisher was born in  East Finchley  in  London, England , into a middle-class household; his father, George, was a successful partner in Robinson & Fisher, auctioneers and fine art dealers. [ 35 ]  He was one of twins, with the other twin being still-born [ 36 ]  and grew up the youngest, with three sisters and one brother. [ 37 ]  From 1896 until 1904 they lived at  Inverforth House  in London, where  English Heritage  installed a  blue plaque  in 2002, before moving to  Streatham . [ 38 ]  His mother, Kate, died from acute  peritonitis  when he was 14, and his father lost his business 18 months later. [ 35 ]


Lifelong poor eyesight caused his rejection by the  British Army  for  World War I , [ 39 ]  but also developed his ability to visualize problems in  geometrical  terms, not in writing mathematical solutions, or proofs. He entered  Harrow School  age 14 and won the school's Neeld Medal in mathematics. In 1909, he won a scholarship to study  Mathematics  at  Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge . In 1912, he gained a First in  Mathematics . [ 40 ]
In 1915 he published a paper,  The evolution of sexual preference , [ 41 ]  on  sexual selection  and  mate choice .


During 1913–1919, Fisher worked as a statistician in the City of London and taught  physics  and maths at a sequence of  public schools , at the  Thames Nautical Training College , and at  Bradfield College . There he settled with his new bride, Eileen Guinness, with whom he had two sons and six daughters. [ 42 ]


In 1918 he published " The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance ", in which he introduced the term  variance  and proposed its formal analysis. [ 43 ]  He put forward a  genetics conceptual model  showing that  continuous variation  amongst  phenotypic traits  measured by biostatisticians could be produced by the combined action of many discrete genes and thus be the result of  Mendelian inheritance . This was the first step towards establishing  population genetics  and  quantitative genetics , which demonstrated that  natural selection  could change  allele frequencies  in a population, reconciling its discontinuous nature with gradual  evolution . [ 44 ]  Joan Box, Fisher's biographer and daughter, says that Fisher had resolved this problem already in 1911. [ 45 ]  Today, Fisher's additive model is still regularly used in  genome-wide association studies . [ 46 ]


In 1919, he began working at the  Rothamsted Experimental Station  in Hertfordshire, where he would remain for 14 years. [ 14 ]  He had been offered a position at the  Galton Laboratory  in  University College London  led by  Karl Pearson , but instead accepted a temporary role at Rothamsted to investigate the possibility of analysing the vast amount of crop data accumulated since 1842 from the "Classical Field Experiments". He analysed the data recorded over many years, and in 1921 published  Studies in Crop Variation I , his first application of the  analysis of variance  (ANOVA). [ 47 ]   Studies in Crop Variation II  written with his first assistant,  Winifred Mackenzie , became the model for later ANOVA work. [ 48 ]  Later assistants who mastered and propagated Fisher's methods were  Joseph Oscar Irwin ,  John Wishart  and  Frank Yates . Between 1912 and 1922 Fisher recommended, analysed (with heuristic  proofs ) and vastly popularized the  maximum likelihood estimation  method. [ 49 ]


Fisher's 1924 article  On a distribution yielding the error functions of several well known statistics  presented  Pearson's chi-squared test  and  William Gosset 's  Student's t-distribution  in the same framework as the  Gaussian distribution , and is where he developed  Fisher's z-distribution , a new statistical method commonly used decades later as the  F -distribution . He pioneered the principles of the  design of experiments  and the statistics of small samples and the analysis of real data. [ 22 ]


In 1925 he published  Statistical Methods for Research Workers , one of the 20th century's most influential books on statistical methods. [ 50 ]   Fisher's method [ 51 ] [ 52 ]  is a technique for  data fusion  or " meta-analysis " (analysis of analyses). Fisher formalized and popularized use of the  p-value  in statistics, which plays a central role in his approach. Fisher proposes the level p=0.05, or a 1 in 20 chance of being exceeded by chance, as a limit for statistical significance, and applies this to a normal distribution (as a two-tailed test), yielding the rule of two standard deviations (on a normal distribution) for statistical significance. [ 53 ]  The significance of  1.96 , the approximate value of the 97.5 percentile point of the normal distribution used in probability and statistics, also originated in this book.


"The value for which P = 0.05, or 1 in 20, is 1.96 or nearly 2; it is convenient to take this point as a limit in judging whether a deviation is to be considered significant or not." [ 54 ]


In Table 1 of the work, he gave the more precise value 1.959964. [ 55 ]


In 1928, Fisher was the first to use  diffusion equations  to attempt to calculate the distribution of  allele  frequencies and the estimation of  genetic linkage  by maximum likelihood methods among populations. [ 56 ]


In 1930,  The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection  was first published by  Clarendon Press  and is dedicated to  Leonard Darwin . A core work of the neo-Darwinian  modern evolutionary synthesis , [ 57 ]  it helped define  population genetics , which Fisher founded alongside  Sewall Wright  and  J. B. S. Haldane , and revived Darwin's neglected idea of  sexual selection . [ 58 ]


One of Fisher's favourite aphorisms was "Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability." [ 59 ]


Fisher's fame grew, and he began to travel and lecture widely. In 1931, he spent six weeks at the Statistical Laboratory at  Iowa State College  where he gave three lectures per week, and met many American statisticians, including  George W. Snedecor . He returned there again in 1936. [ citation needed ]


In 1933, Fisher became the head of the Department of  Eugenics  at  University College London . [ 60 ]  In 1934, he become editor of the  Annals of Eugenics  (now called  Annals of Human Genetics ).


In 1935, he published  The Design of Experiments , which was "also fundamental, [and promoted] statistical technique and application... The mathematical justification of the methods was not stressed and proofs were often barely sketched or omitted altogether .... [This] led  H.B. Mann  to fill the gaps with a rigorous mathematical treatment". [ 50 ] [ 61 ]
In this book Fisher also outlined the  Lady tasting tea , now a famous  design  of a statistical  randomized experiment  which uses  Fisher's exact test  and is the original exposition of Fisher's notion of a  null hypothesis . [ 62 ] [ 63 ]


The same year he also published a paper on  fiducial inference [ 64 ] [ 65 ]  and applied it to the  Behrens–Fisher problem , the solution to which, proposed first by  Walter Behrens  and a few years later by Fisher, is the  Behrens–Fisher distribution .


In 1936, he introduced the  Iris flower data set  as an example of  discriminant analysis . [ 66 ]


In his 1937 paper  The wave of advance of advantageous genes  he proposed  Fisher's equation  in the context of  population dynamics  to describe the spatial spread of an advantageous  allele , and explored its travelling wave solutions. [ 67 ]  Out of this also came the  Fisher–Kolmogorov equation . [ 68 ]
In 1937, he visited the  Indian Statistical Institute  in Calcutta, and its one part-time employee,  P. C. Mahalanobis , often returning to encourage its development. He was the guest of honour at its 25th anniversary in 1957, when it had 2000 employees. [ 69 ]


In 1938, Fisher and  Frank Yates  described the  Fisher–Yates shuffle  in their book  Statistical tables for biological, agricultural and medical research . [ 70 ]  Their description of the algorithm used pencil and paper; a table of random numbers provided the randomness.


In 1943, along with  A.S. Corbet  and  C.B. Williams  he published a paper on  relative species abundance  where he developed the  log series distribution  (sometimes called the logarithmic distribution) to fit two different abundance data sets. [ 71 ] [ 72 ] [ 73 ]  In the same year he took the  Balfour Chair of Genetics  where the Italian researcher  Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza  was recruited in 1948, establishing a one-man unit of bacterial genetics.


In 1936, Fisher used a  Pearson's chi-squared test  to analyze Mendel's data and concluded that Mendel's results were far too perfect, suggesting that adjustments (intentional or unconscious) had been made to the data to make the observations fit the hypothesis. [ 74 ]  Later authors have claimed Fisher's analysis was flawed, proposing various statistical and botanical explanations for Mendel's numbers. [ 75 ] [ 76 ]  In 1947, Fisher co-founded the journal  Heredity  with  Cyril Darlington  and in 1949 he published  The Theory of Inbreeding.


In 1950, he published "Gene Frequencies in a Cline Determined by Selection and Diffusion". [ 77 ]  He developed computational  algorithms  for analyzing data from his balanced experimental designs, [ 78 ]  with various editions and translations, becoming a standard reference work for scientists in many disciplines. In  ecological genetics  he and  E. B. Ford  showed that the force of natural selection was much stronger than had been assumed, with many ecogenetic situations (such as  polymorphism ) being maintained by the force of selection.


During this time he also worked on mouse chromosome mapping, breeding the mice in laboratories in his own house. [ 79 ]


Fisher publicly spoke out against the 1950 study showing that smoking  tobacco  causes  lung cancer , arguing that  correlation does not imply causation . [ 80 ] [ 81 ] [ 82 ] [ 83 ] [ 84 ] [ 85 ]  To quote his biographers Yates and Mather, "It has been suggested that the fact that Fisher was employed as consultant by the tobacco firms in this controversy casts doubt on the value of his arguments. This is to misjudge the man. He was not above accepting financial reward for his labours, but the reason for his interest was undoubtedly his dislike and mistrust of puritanical tendencies of all kinds; and perhaps also the personal solace he had always found in tobacco." [ 86 ]  Others have suggested that his analysis was biased by professional conflicts and his own love of smoking; [ 87 ]  he was a heavy pipe smoker. [ 88 ]


He gave the 1953  Croonian lecture  on population genetics. [ 89 ]


In the winter of 1954–1955 Fisher met  Debabrata Basu , the Indian statistician who wrote in 1988, "With his reference set argument, Sir Ronald was trying to find a  via media  between the two poles of Statistics – Berkeley and  Bayes . [ 90 ]  My efforts to understand this Fisher compromise led me to the  likelihood principle ". [ 91 ]


In 1957, a retired Fisher emigrated to Australia, where he spent time as a senior research fellow at the Australian  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation  (CSIRO) in  Adelaide ,  South Australia . [ 92 ]  During this time, he continued in his denial of tobacco harm, and enlisted German eugenicist  Otmar von Verschuer  to his cause. [ 88 ]


Following surgery for  colon cancer , he died of post-operative complications in  Queen Elizabeth Hospital  in Adelaide in 1962. [ 92 ] [ 88 ]  His remains are interred in  St Peter's Cathedral , Adelaide. [ 92 ]


Fisher's doctoral students included  Walter Bodmer , [ 2 ]   D. J. Finney ,  Ebenezer Laing , [ 3 ] [ 2 ]   Mary F. Lyon [ 4 ]  and  C. R. Rao . [ 2 ]  Although a prominent opponent of  Bayesian statistics , Fisher was the first to use the term "Bayesian", in 1950. [ 93 ]  The 1930  The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection  is commonly cited in biology books, and outlines many important concepts, such as:


Fisher is also known for:


Fisher married Eileen Guinness, with whom he had two sons and six daughters. [ 42 ]
His marriage disintegrated during  World War II , and his older son George, an  aviator , was killed in combat. [ 111 ]  His daughter Joan, who wrote a biography of her father, married the statistician  George E. P. Box . [ 112 ]


According to Yates and Mather, "His large family, in particular, reared in conditions of great financial stringency, was a personal expression of his genetic and evolutionary convictions." [ 86 ]  Fisher was noted for being loyal, and was seen as a patriot, a member of the  Church of England , politically  conservative , as well as a scientific rationalist. He developed a reputation for carelessness in his dress and was the archetype of the absent-minded professor.  H. Allen Orr  describes him in the  Boston Review  as a "deeply devout  Anglican  who, between founding modern statistics and population genetics, penned articles for church magazines". [ 113 ]  In a 1955 broadcast on Science and Christianity, [ 86 ]  he said:


The custom of making abstract dogmatic assertions is not, certainly, derived from the teaching of  Jesus , but has been a widespread weakness among religious teachers in subsequent centuries. I do not think that the word for the Christian virtue of faith should be prostituted to mean the credulous acceptance of all such piously intended assertions. Much self-deception in the young believer is needed to convince himself that he knows that of which in reality he knows himself to be ignorant. That surely is hypocrisy, against which we have been most conspicuously warned.


Fisher was involved with the  Society for Psychical Research . [ 114 ] [ 115 ]


Between 1950 and 1951, Fisher, along with other leading geneticists and anthropologists of his time, was asked to comment on a statement that  UNESCO  was preparing on the nature of race and racial differences, which was published in 1950 as the UNESCO  Statement on Race . The statement, along with the comments and criticisms of a large number of scientists including Fisher, is published in "The Race Concept: Results of an Inquiry" (1952). [ 116 ]


Fisher was one of four scientists who opposed the statement. In his own words, Fisher's opposition is based on "one fundamental objection to the Statement", which "destroys the very spirit of the whole document." He believes that human groups differ profoundly "in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development" and concludes from this that the "practical international problem is that of learning to share the resources of this planet amicably with persons of materially different nature, and that this problem is being obscured by entirely well-intentioned efforts to minimize the real differences that exist." [ 117 ] [ 118 ] [ 119 ]


Fisher's opinions are clarified by his more detailed comments on Section 5 of the statement, which are concerned with psychological and mental differences between the races. Section 5 concludes as follows:


Scientifically, however, we realized that any common psychological attribute is more likely to be due to a common historical and social background, and that such attributes may obscure the fact that, within different populations consisting of many human types, one will find approximately the same range of temperament and intelligence. [ 116 ] : 14


Of the entire statement, Section 5 recorded the most dissenting viewpoints.  It was recorded that "Fisher's attitude … is the same as  Muller 's and  Sturtevant 's". [ 116 ] : 56   Muller's criticism was recorded in more detail and was noted to "represent an important trend of ideas":


I quite agree with the chief intention of the article as a whole, which, I take it, is to bring out the relative unimportance of such genetic mental differences between races as may exist, in contrast to the importance of the mental differences (between individuals as well as between nations) caused by tradition, training and other aspects of the environment.  However, in view of the admitted existence of some physically expressed hereditary differences of a conspicuous nature, between the averages or the medians of the races, it would be strange if there were not also some hereditary differences affecting the mental characteristics which develop in a given environment, between these averages or medians.  At the same time, these mental differences might usually be unimportant in comparison with those between individuals of the same race…. To the great majority of geneticists it seems absurd to suppose that psychological characteristics are subject to entirely different laws of heredity or development than other biological characteristics. Even though the former characteristics are far more influenced than the latter by environment, in the form of past experiences, they must have a highly complex genetic basis. [ 116 ] : 52


Fisher's own words were quoted as follows:


As you ask for remarks and suggestions, there is one that occurs to me, unfortunately of a somewhat fundamental nature, namely that the Statement as it stands appears to draw a distinction between the body and mind of men, which must, I think, prove untenable.  It appears to me unmistakable that gene differences which influence the growth or physiological development of an organism will ordinarily  pari passu  influence the congenital inclinations and capacities of the mind.  In fact, I should say that, to vary conclusion (2) on page 5, 'Available scientific knowledge provides a firm basis for believing that the groups of mankind differ in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development,' seeing that such groups do differ undoubtedly in a very large number of their genes. [ 116 ] : 56


Fisher also ended a 1954 letter to  Reginald Ruggles Gates , a Canadian-born geneticist who argued that different racial groups were different species, with the words:


I am sorry that there should be propaganda in favour of  miscegenation  in North America as I am sure it can do nothing but harm. Is it beyond human endeavour to give and justly administer equal rights to all citizens without fooling ourselves that these are equivalent items? [ 120 ]


Fisher's writings nearly all discuss human populations or humanity as a whole without reference to race or specific racial groups, and none of his work explicitly supports the idea of racial superiority or white supremacy. [ 120 ]  Fisher had a close personal relationship with Indian statistician  P.C. Mahalanobis , and significantly contributed to the development of the  Indian Statistical Institute ; and Fisher's graduate students included  Walter Bodmer , a child of Jewish-German parents who fled from Nazi Germany while he was young, and  Ebenezer Laing , an African geneticist from Ghana. [ 120 ]   Daniel Kevles , an American  historian of science , described Fisher as an "anti-racist conservative". [ 120 ]  However, British historian Robert J. Evans, writing in  The New Statesman , argued that Fisher's views on eugenics and his opposition to UNESCO's statement about genetic racial differences were indicative of racism. [ 121 ]


In 1911, Fisher became founding Chairman of the University of Cambridge Eugenics Society, whose other founding members included  John Maynard Keynes ,  R. C. Punnett , and  Horace Darwin . After members of the Cambridge Society – including Fisher – stewarded the First International Eugenics Congress in London in summer 1912, a link was forged with the  Eugenics Society (UK) . [ 122 ]  He saw  eugenics  as addressing pressing social and scientific issues that encompassed and drove his interest in both genetics and statistics. During World War I Fisher started writing book reviews for  The Eugenics Review  and volunteered to undertake all such reviews for the journal, being hired for a part-time position.


The last third of  The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection  focused on eugenics, attributing the fall of  civilizations  to the fertility of their upper classes being diminished, and used British 1911 census data to show an inverse relationship between fertility and social class, which was partly due, he claimed, to the lower financial costs and hence increasing social status of families with fewer children. He proposed the abolition of extra allowances to large families, with the allowances proportional to the earnings of the father. [ 123 ] [ 124 ] [ 125 ]  He served in several official committees to promote eugenics, including the Committee for Legalizing Eugenic Sterilization which drafted legislation aiming to limit the fertility of "feeble minded high-grade defectives ... comprising a tenth of the total population". It was proposed that this policy would allow for voluntary sterilisation. Fisher was against the idea of forced sterilisation. [ 126 ] [ 127 ]


Beginning in 1934, Fisher became disillusioned with the Eugenics Society over concerns that its activities were increasingly aimed in a political rather than scientific direction; he formally dissociated with the Society in 1941. [ 120 ]


Fisher wrote a testimony on behalf of the eugenicist  Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer . He wrote that, although the Nazis used Verschuer's work to give scientific support for their ideology, it was "[Verschuer's] misfortune rather than his fault that racial theory was a part of the Nazi ideology." [ 120 ] [ 128 ]  He conducted extensive correspondence with von Verschuer over decades, which is held at the  University of Adelaide . [ 88 ]


Fisher was elected to the  Royal Society  in 1929, the  American Academy of Arts and Sciences  in 1934, [ 129 ]  the  American Philosophical Society  in 1941, [ 130 ]  and the United States  National Academy of Sciences  in 1948. [ 131 ]  He was made a  Knight Bachelor  by Queen  Elizabeth II  in 1952 and awarded the  Linnean Society of London   Darwin–Wallace Medal  in 1958.


He won the  Copley Medal  and the Royal Medal. He was an Invited Speaker of the  ICM  in 1924 in Toronto and in 1928 in Bologna. [ 132 ]


In 1950,  Maurice Wilkes  and  David Wheeler  used the  Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator  to solve a  differential equation  relating to gene frequencies in a paper by Ronald Fisher. [ 77 ]  This represents the first use of a computer for a problem in the field of biology. The  Kent distribution  (also known as the Fisher–Bingham distribution) was named after him and  Christopher Bingham  in 1982, while the  Fisher kernel  was named after Fisher in 1998. [ 133 ]


The  R. A. Fisher Lectureship  was a North American  Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies  (COPSS) annual lecture prize, established in 1963, until the name was changed to COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship in 2020. On 28 April 1998 a minor planet,  21451 Fisher , was named after him. [ 134 ]


In 2010, the R.A. Fisher Chair in Statistical Genetics was established in University College London to recognise Fisher's extraordinary contributions to both statistics and genetics.


Anders Hald  called Fisher "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science", [ 6 ]  while  Richard Dawkins  named him "the greatest biologist since  Darwin ":


Not only was he the most original and constructive of the architects of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, Fisher also was the father of modern statistics and experimental design. He therefore could be said to have provided researchers in biology and medicine with their most important research tools, as well as with the modern version of biology's central theorem. [ 135 ]


Geoffrey Miller  said of him:


To biologists, he was an architect of the "modern synthesis" that used mathematical models to integrate Mendelian genetics with Darwin's selection theories. To psychologists, Fisher was the inventor of various statistical tests that are still supposed to be used whenever possible in psychology journals. To farmers, Fisher was the founder of experimental agricultural research, saving millions from starvation through rational crop breeding programs. [ 136 ]


Fisher and Sewall Wright both contributed to the development of  population genetics , which became part of the  modern synthesis . The interpretation of the mathematical theories of population genetics became a bone of contention between Fisher and Wright by the mid-1920s, and the issue became acrimonious. Dispute persisted for the rest of Fisher's life. [ 137 ]  A 2021 paper, authored by trustees of the "Fisher Memorial Trust", commented that recent criticism of Fisher could mostly be characterised as "reconsideration of the honour given to individuals from preceding times who are felt to have contributed to social injustice in the past, or to have held views that are felt to have promoted social injustice." [ 120 ]


In June 2020, during the  international protests  caused by the  murder of George Floyd ,  Gonville and Caius College  announced that  a 1989 stained-glass window  commemorating Fisher's work would be removed because of his connection with eugenics. [ 138 ]  An accommodation building, built in 2018 and previously named after him, was subsequently renamed too. [ 139 ]   University College London  also decided to remove his name from its Centre for Computational Biology. [ 140 ]


Fisher rejected the notion of smoking cigarettes being dangerous, calling it "propaganda". [ 141 ]


The  Ronald Fisher bibliography  contains the works published by the English  statistician  and  biologist   Ronald Fisher  (1890–1962).


Angela Mary Cecilia Gallop   CBE   FRSB  (born 2 January 1950) [ 2 ]  is a British  forensic scientist .


She began her career with the  Forensic Science Service  in 1974. Since 1986, she has run her own forensic service companies. Her findings helped solve notorious cases such as the deaths of  Roberto Calvi ,  Rachel Nickell ,  Lynette White ,  Damilola Taylor , and  Gareth Williams . She also took part in the investigation of the  death of Diana, Princess of Wales , finding no evidence to support  theories of a conspiracy . She has been awarded the  Order of the British Empire  for her scientific contributions, detailed in her books, and has been portrayed on television.


Gallop was born and raised in  Oxford , England, [ 2 ] [ 3 ]  and grew up " tomboyish ", playing with her brothers, half-brothers and her  chemistry set . [ 3 ]  Her parents, Eunice and Kenneth Knowles, [ 2 ]  divorced. [ 3 ]  She was educated at  Headington School [ 2 ]  but performed poorly and barely qualified for the  sixth form , where a  botany  teacher sparked her interest in science. [ 3 ]  She studied botany at the  University of Sheffield  and  biochemistry  at the  University of Oxford . [ 1 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]  Gallop spent much of the early 1970s researching the biochemistry of  chloroplasts  in  sea slugs  on the  Isle of Wight  for her  Doctor of Philosophy  degree. [ 6 ]


Seeking a more popular field as well as a less repetitive job, Gallop became a senior biologist with the  Forensic Science Service  (FSS) in 1974. [ 3 ] [ 6 ]  Aside from assistants and secretarial staff, she was one of few women in the laboratory; her boss did not think she could cope emotionally but her colleagues supported her. [ 3 ]  She visited her first  crime scene  in February 1978, looking for clues about the murder in Huddersfield of  Helen Rytka , later confirmed as a victim of  Peter Sutcliffe . She credits her determination "to give some relief to the family" to this case. [ 3 ]


By 1986, Gallop felt her workload was too large and her stimulation unsatisfactory, so she established her first company, Forensic Access. She intended to provide services to  criminal defence lawyers , who could not rely on the FSS expertise at the time. Her advertisements initially yielded requests for infidelity investigations, which she carried out. By the end of 1986, her business had grown enough to have full-time employees and she moved her work from her home to a proper laboratory. [ 6 ]  She soon began investigating murder, assault, and arson cases as well as  cold cases . [ 3 ]  She was commissioned by the defence in the trial of Robert Thompson for the  murder of James Bulger . [ 3 ]


By 1991, when she was hired to re-examine the evidence in the apparent  suicide by hanging  of Italian banker  Roberto Calvi , Gallop had gained a reputation for her unconventional methods. Realizing that he shared Calvi's proportions, Gallop conducted experiments with her husband, fellow forensic scientist Russell Stockdale, that proved that Calvi could not have hanged himself and that he was murdered. Nobody has been convicted, but Calvi's family were impressed by Gallop's work and consider her findings essential. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]


Gallop founded another company, Forensic Alliance, in 1997, providing service to the police. In 1999, the company solved the 1988  murder of Lynette White  after finding a microscopic flake of dried blood under two layers of new paint. The police began hiring Gallop whenever they needed to review significant cold cases. She was asked in 2003 to review the evidence in the 2000  killing of Damilola Taylor . In 2004, the  Metropolitan Police  commissioned her to have a look at the forensic evidence relating to the  1997 car crash deaths  of  Diana, Princess of Wales , and  Dodi Fayed . Gallop found no grounds to support the claims of Fayed's father,  Mohamed Al-Fayed , that the couple were killed in  a conspiracy  involving the  British royal family . [ 6 ]  Gallop's analysis of Diana's stomach content proved to  Operation Paget  that Diana was not pregnant when she died. [ 9 ]


When investigating the  Pembrokeshire coastal path murders , Gallop prevailed upon the police to fund the expensive examination of  trace evidence , which led to the conviction of the murderer. She considers this the most satisfying moment in her career and believes that the case would not have been solved without fiber examination. [ 4 ]  The same method proved successful when she was commissioned to investigate the 1993  murder of Stephen Lawrence , a black teenager. [ 6 ]


She contributed evidence to the  Macpherson inquiry , which found that the initial investigation of Lawrence's death failed due to  institutional racism  in the Metropolitan Police. She was commissioned for the case again in 2006, providing key evidence that led to convictions. [ 3 ]  Gallop has also commented on the investigation into the  death of Gareth Williams , the  Secret Intelligence Service  operative who was found dead in suspicious circumstances at a Security Service safe house flat in  Pimlico , London, in 2010. [ 11 ]  Other high-profile murder cases solved with Gallop's help include that of  Rachel Nickell . [ 3 ]


Besides murders, Gallop has been commissioned to investigate other kinds of criminal cases, including suspected  incest ,  rapes ,  war crimes , and  bestiality ; [ 6 ]  in a particularly unusual case, she confirmed the presence of boar sperm in the abdomen of a man hospitalised with a punctured  colon  and  peritonitis . [ 3 ]  She has also worked on the investigations of alleged  alien abductions . [ 6 ]


In 2010, Gallop helped found Axiom International, which provides forensic and related advice to law enforcement agencies worldwide. She is the firm's chief executive. [ 3 ]  She has since worked in Libya, Iraq, Somaliland, and Kosovo. [ 5 ] [ 12 ]


To Gallop's dismay, the  UK government  closed the FSS in 2012 to save funds. According to Irish forensic scientist  Niamh Nic Daéid , "some people in the business" blame Gallop for the demise of the FSS because she started a competing commercial alternative to it, but she thinks such conclusions are "a bit unfair". [ 6 ]  In Gallop's view, the FSS should have been "modernised and made properly commercial" rather than closed. [ 6 ]


In late 2021, Gallop met John Actie, one of five black and mixed-race men who had been wrongly accused of the murder of Lynette White. He had spent two years in prison when Gallop's findings proved his innocence. This was her first meeting with someone she helped exonerate and was filmed for a  Channel 5  documentary. [ 6 ]


Gallop has reduced her involvement in frontline forensic work but has expressed an interest in taking on plenty of cold cases, including the  disappearance of Madeleine McCann . [ 3 ]


Gallop started writing to record her life's work [ 6 ]  and to highlight the lack of funding and recognition for forensic scientists. [ 3 ]  She detailed her early cases in a 2019 book titled  When the Dogs Don’t Bark . A second book,  How to Solve a Crime , came out in early 2022. She is careful about what she puts in her books and said that the inclusion of certain revealing elements of forensic technique "would make our job a lot more difficult". [ 6 ]


Gallop is a visiting professor at the  University of Strathclyde . [ 2 ] [ 13 ] [ 4 ]


Between 2001 and 2004, Gallop was president of the  Forensic Science Society [ 14 ]  and in 2011 was awarded an honorary degree of  Doctor of Science  (D.Sc.) by  Nottingham Trent University , in recognition of her contribution to national and international forensic science in the support of justice. [ 15 ]  Gallop has served on the Independent Police Commission, chaired by  Lord Stevens . [ 16 ]


Gallop was made  Commander of the Order of the British Empire  as part of the  2015 Queen's Birthday Honours . [ 3 ] [ 17 ]


Angela Gallop is portrayed by actor  Anastasia Hille  in the 2021 TV miniseries titled  The Pembrokeshire Murders . [ 4 ]  Gallop praised Hille's talent but lamented the lack of "lightness" and "passion" in the character, observing that scientists are not constantly "very serious and very considered". She has also said that the cooperation with the police was not always so "very well mannered" and straightforward. [ 18 ]


Gallop was also played by Nancy Carroll in the 2021 TV miniseries  Stephen , a drama following the fight for justice for murdered teenager  Stephen Lawrence .


Gallop was a guest on  Desert Island Discs  on 20 October 2022.


Gallop appeared on the 2023  Paramount+  show  Murder of God's Banker. [ 19 ]


Gallop lives with her two  Siamese cats  in rural  Oxfordshire . She retains an interest in sea slugs. [ 6 ]  She has been married twice and has a son. [ 5 ]  Angela Gallop and Russell Stockdale separated in 2003 but remained very, very close. He died in late 2021. [ 6 ]


The  Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics  was a laboratory established for the research of  eugenics , later to the study of  biometry  and  statistics , and eventually human  genetics  based at  University College London  (UCL) in  London , England. [ 1 ]  The laboratory was originally established in 1904 and existed in name until 2020. [ 2 ]


The Eugenics Record Office, a precursor to the Galton Laboratory, was established in 1904 by  Francis Galton . [ 3 ]  In 1906  Karl Pearson  took directorship of The Eugenics Record Office, eventually dissolving it. During its operation, The Eugenics Record Office employed three staffers: Dr. Edgar Schuster (Galton Research Fellow, 1905–1906),  David Heron  (Galton Research Fellow, 1906), and  Ethel Elderton  (Research Assistant and Secretary, 1905–1907). [ 3 ]  In 1907 the Office was reconstituted as the Galton Eugenics Laboratory as part of UCL, still under the direction of Karl Pearson a professor of  Applied mathematics . [ 4 ]


The Galton Laboratory was financed by Francis Galton. On his death in 1911, Francis Galton left his estate to the University of London to fund a permanent Chair of Eugenics filled by Karl Pearson. [ 5 ]  Pearson created the Department of Applied Statistics which combined the Biometric Laboratory and the Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, in 1913 this department was renamed the Department of Applied Statistics and Eugenics. [ 6 ] [ 7 ]


The department's increase in size prompted UCL to acquire or construct a new space. In 1912  Sir Herbert Bartlett  offered space in the North-West front of UCL's Wilkins building. [ 6 ] [ 8 ]  The outbreak of the First World War interrupted work and the new space was not used by the department until October 1919, with an official opening in June 1920. [ 6 ]


Pearson was succeeded as Galton Professor by  R. A. Fisher  in 1934. When Fisher moved to  Cambridge  in 1944 the laboratory was incorporated in an enlarged Department of Eugenics, Biometry and Genetics [ 9 ]  headed by  J. B. S. Haldane , the Wheldon Professor of Biometry. This reversed a previous split in 1933 following Karl Pearson's retirement.


The Galton Laboratory underwent many changes during the post-war period. Most notably this period saw another renaming of the department following negative associations of  eugenics after World War II . This renaming was by  Harry Harris  in 1966, where it then became the Department of Human Genetics and Biometry.


The Department of Human Genetics and Biometry, including the Galton Laboratory, became part of the Department of Biology in UCL in 1996. MRC Human Biochemical Genetics Unit was established by Harris in 1962. He was Honorary Director until he went to Philadelphia in 1976, and the unit continued under the direction of David Hopkinson until its closure in October 2000.  Sam Berry  also held a Professorship in Genetics from 1972.


In 1967 the laboratory moved into a dedicated new building Wolfson House along with a further two  Medical Research Council  units: the Human Biochemical Genetics Unit, headed by Harris, and the MRC Experimental Genetics Unit, headed by  Hans Grüneberg . Subsequently, on Grüneberg's retirement, the space occupied by his unit was reallocated to the newly created  MRC Mammalian Development Unit , led by  Anne McLaren , and the  MRC Blood Group Unit , headed by  Ruth Sanger , and subsequently Patricia Tippett.


In 2013 the Galton Laboratory was incorporated into UCL's then new Department of Genetics, Evolution, and Environment. [ 10 ]


In 2018, then President and Provost of UCL, Professor Michael Arthur established a formal inquiry into the history of eugenics at UCL. [ 11 ]  The Inquiry was chaired by Professor  Iyiola Solanke , of the University of Leeds and included sixteen members. [ 12 ]  The original inquiry set out six terms of reference. [ 13 ]


In June 2020, UCL issued a formal apology for its history and legacy of eugenics. This followed a report and comprehensive set of recommendations given to UCL in February 2020 from its official Inquiry into the History of Eugenics. [ 14 ]  Additionally, UCL announced that the institution would be denaming spaces and buildings named after Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. The spaces included the former Galton Lecture Theatre, the Pearson Lecture Theatre, and the Pearson Building. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 2 ]  Nine of the inquiry's original sixteen members did not agree to sign this report. [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ]


The MORE Group recommendations was an additional report compiled by nine of the inquiry's members who did not agree to sign off on the Feb 2020 report. Reasons cited by members of the MORE Group for their refusal to sign the Feb 2020 report included a need for more time to develop the narrative of the report, a deeper understanding of UCL's eugenics history and a broader set of terms that gave equal weight and understanding to all targets of eugenics. [ 20 ] [ 21 ]


The inquiry group published one additional group report in April 2021 co-chaired by Professor  Hazel Genn  and Dr.  Kamna Patel . This report synthesised the original February 2020 report with the further recommendations of the MORE Group. [ 22 ]  The most recent report was released in November 2021 focused on further research undertaken by the inquiry.


The Galton Laboratory published many pieces including memoir series, lectures series, addresses, biometric series, and technical series.


Originally established as the Galton Chair in National Eugenics, the post was renamed under Penrose to be the Galton Professor of Human Genetics. [ 27 ]


^  Possibly succeeding Grüneberg.


51°31′23″N   0°07′59″W  /  51.523°N 0.133°W  /  51.523; -0.133


George Gamow  (sometimes  Gammoff ; born  Georgiy Antonovich Gamov ;  Russian :  Георгий Антонович Гамов ; 4 March 1904 – 19 August 1968) was a Soviet and American  polymath ,  theoretical physicist  and  cosmologist .  He was an early advocate and developer of  Georges Lemaître 's  Big Bang theory . Gamow discovered a theoretical explanation of  alpha decay  by  quantum tunneling , invented the  liquid drop model  - the first mathematical model of the  atomic nucleus , worked on  radioactive decay ,  star formation ,  stellar nucleosynthesis ,  Big Bang nucleosynthesis  (which he collectively called  nucleocosmogenesis ), predicted the existence of the  cosmic microwave background radiation  and  molecular genetics . Gamow was a key figure in the development and understanding of  quantum tunneling . [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


In his middle and late career, Gamow directed much of his attention to teaching and wrote popular books on science, including  One Two Three... Infinity  and the  Mr Tompkins  series of books (1939–1967). Some of his books remain in print more than a half-century after their original publication.


Gamow was born in  Odessa ,  Russian Empire  (now  Odesa ,  Ukraine ). His father taught Russian language and literature in  secondary schools , and his mother taught geography and history at a school for girls. In addition to Russian, Gamow learned to speak some French from his mother and German from a tutor. Gamow learned English in his college years and became fluent. Most of his early publications were in German or Russian, but he later used English both for technical papers and for the lay audience.


He was educated at the  Institute of Physics and Mathematics in Odessa [ 4 ]  (1922–23) and at the  University of Leningrad  (1923–1929). Gamow studied under  Alexander Friedmann  in  Leningrad , until Friedmann's early death in 1925, which required him to change dissertation advisors.  At the university, Gamow made friends with three other students of theoretical physics,  Lev Landau ,  Dmitri Ivanenko , and  Matvey Bronshtein . The four formed a group they called the  Three Musketeers , which met to discuss and analyze the ground-breaking papers on quantum mechanics published during those years. He later used the same phrase to describe the Alpher, Herman, and Gamow group.


Upon graduation, he worked on  quantum theory  in  Göttingen , where his research into the atomic nucleus provided the basis for his doctorate. He then worked at the  Theoretical Physics Institute  of the  University of Copenhagen  from 1928 to 1931, with a break to work with  Ernest Rutherford  at the  Cavendish Laboratory  in  Cambridge . He continued to study the atomic nucleus (proposing the  "liquid drop" model ), but also worked on stellar physics with  Robert Atkinson  and  Fritz Houtermans .


In 1931, Gamow was elected a corresponding member of the  Academy of Sciences of the USSR  at age 28 – one of the youngest in its history. [ 5 ] [ a ] [ b ]  During the period 1931–1933, Gamow worked in the Physical Department of the  Radium Institute (Leningrad)  headed by  Vitaly Khlopin  [ ru ] . Europe's first  cyclotron  was designed under the guidance and direct participation of  Igor Kurchatov , Lev Mysovskii and Gamow. In 1932, Gamow and Mysovskii submitted a draft design for consideration by the Academic Council of the Radium Institute, which approved it. The cyclotron was not completed until 1937. [ 6 ]


In the early 20th century, radioactive materials were known to have characteristic exponential decay rates, or half-lives. At the same time, radiation emissions were known to have certain characteristic energies. By 1928, Gamow in Göttingen had solved the theory of the  alpha decay  of a nucleus via  tunnelling , with mathematical help from  Nikolai Kochin . [ 7 ] [ 8 ]  The problem was also solved independently by  Ronald W. Gurney  and  Edward U. Condon . [ 9 ] [ 10 ]  Gurney and Condon did not, however, achieve the quantitative results achieved by Gamow.


Classically, the particle is confined to the nucleus because of the high energy requirement to escape the very strong nuclear  potential well . Also classically, it takes an enormous amount of energy to pull apart the nucleus, an event that would not occur spontaneously. In  quantum mechanics , however, there is a probability the particle can "tunnel through" the wall of the potential well and escape. Gamow solved a model potential for the nucleus and derived from first principles a relationship between the  half-life  of the alpha-decay event process and the energy of the emission, which had been previously discovered empirically and was known as the  Geiger–Nuttall law . [ 11 ]  Some years later, the name  Gamow factor  or Gamow–Sommerfeld factor was applied to the probability of incoming nuclear particles tunnelling through the electrostatic  Coulomb barrier  and undergoing nuclear reactions.


Gamow worked at a number of Soviet establishments before deciding to flee the Soviet Union because of increased oppression. In 1931, he was officially denied permission to attend a scientific conference in Italy. Also in 1931, he married Lyubov Vokhmintseva ( Russian :  Любовь Вохминцева ), another physicist in the Soviet Union, whom he nicknamed "Rho" after  the Greek letter . Gamow and his new wife spent much of the next two years trying to leave the Soviet Union, with or without official permission.  Niels Bohr  and other friends invited Gamow to visit during this period, but Gamow could not get permission to leave.


Gamow later said that his first two attempts to defect with his wife were in 1932 and involved trying to  kayak : first a planned 250-kilometer paddle over the  Black Sea  to  Turkey , and another attempt from  Murmansk  to  Norway . Poor weather foiled both attempts, but they had not been noticed by the authorities. [ 12 ]


In 1933, Gamow was suddenly granted permission to attend the 7th  Solvay Conference  on physics, in  Brussels . He insisted on having his wife accompany him, even saying that he would not go alone. Eventually the Soviet authorities relented and issued passports for the couple. The two attended and arranged to extend their stay, with the help of  Marie Curie  and other physicists. Over the next year, Gamow obtained temporary work at the  Curie Institute ,  University of London , and the  University of Michigan .


In 1934, Gamow and his wife moved to the United States. He became a professor at  George Washington University  (GWU) in 1934 and recruited physicist  Edward Teller  from London to join him at GWU. In 1936, Gamow and Teller published what became known as the " Gamow–Teller selection rule " for  beta decay . During his time in Washington, Gamow would also publish major scientific papers with  Mário Schenberg  and  Ralph Alpher . By the late 1930s, Gamow's interests had turned towards  astrophysics  and  cosmology .


In 1935, Gamow's son,  Igor Gamow  was born (in a 1947 book, Gamow's dedication was "To my son IGOR, Who Would Rather Be a Cowboy"). George Gamow became a  naturalized American  in 1940. He retained his formal association with GWU until 1956.


During World War II, Gamow continued to teach physics at  George Washington University  and consulted for the US Navy.


Gamow was interested in the processes of  stellar evolution  and the early history of the  Solar System . In 1945, he co-authored a paper supporting work by German theoretical physicist  Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker  on planetary formation in the early Solar System. [ 13 ]  Gamow published another paper in the British journal  Nature  in 1948, in which he developed equations for the mass and radius of a primordial galaxy (which typically contains about one hundred billion stars, each with a mass comparable with that of the Sun). [ 14 ]


Gamow's work led the development of the hot "big bang" theory of the expanding universe. He was the earliest to employ  Alexander Friedmann 's and  Georges Lemaître 's non-static solutions of Einstein's gravitational equations describing a universe of uniform matter density and constant spatial curvature. Gamow's crucial advance would provide a physical reification of Lemaître's idea of a unique primordial quantum. Gamow did this by assuming that the early universe was dominated by radiation rather than by matter. [ 15 ]  Most of the later work in cosmology is founded in Gamow's theory. He applied his model to the question of the creation of the chemical elements  [ 16 ]  and to the subsequent condensation of matter into galaxies, [ 17 ]  whose mass and diameter he was able to calculate in terms of the fundamental physical parameters, such as the speed of light  c , the Newtonian constant of gravitation  G , the fine-structure constant  α , and the Planck constant  h .


Gamow's interest in cosmology arose from his earlier interest in energy generation and element production and transformation in stars. [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ]  This work, in turn, evolved from his fundamental discovery of  quantum tunneling  as the mechanism  of nuclear  alpha decay , and his application of this theory to the inverse process to calculate rates of thermonuclear reaction.


At first, Gamow believed that all the elements might be produced in the very high temperature and density early stage of the universe. Later, he revised this opinion on the strength of compelling evidence advanced by  Fred Hoyle  and others, that elements heavier than lithium are largely produced in  thermonuclear reactions in stars  and in supernovae. Gamow formulated a set of coupled differential equations describing his proposed process and assigned, as a PhD dissertation topic, his graduate student  Ralph Alpher  the task of solving the equations numerically. These results of Gamow and Alpher appeared in 1948 as the  Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper . [ 21 ]  Before his interest turned to the question of the genetic code, Gamow published about twenty papers on cosmology. The earliest was in 1939 with Edward Teller on galaxy formation, [ 22 ]  followed in 1946 by the first description of cosmic nucleosynthesis. He also wrote many popular articles as well as academic textbooks on this and other subjects. [ 23 ]


In 1948, he published a paper dealing with an attenuated version of the coupled set of equations describing the production of the proton and the deuteron from thermal neutrons. By means of a simplification and using the observed ratio of hydrogen to heavier elements, he was able to obtain the density of matter at the onset of nucleosynthesis and from this the mass and diameter of the early galaxies. [ 24 ]  In 1953 he produced similar results, but this time based on another determination of the density of matter and radiation, at the time at which they became equal. [ 25 ]  In this paper, Gamow determined the density of the relict background radiation, from which a present temperature of 7 K was predicted – a value which was slightly more than twice the presently-accepted value.


In 1967, he published reminiscences and recapitulation of his own work as well as the work of Alpher and Robert Herman (both with Gamow and also independently of him). [ 26 ]  This was prompted by the discovery of the  cosmic microwave background radiation  by Penzias and Wilson in 1965; Gamow, Alpher, and Herman felt that they did not receive the credit they deserved for their theoretical predictions of its existence and source. [ citation needed ]  Gamow was disconcerted by the fact that the authors of a communication [ 27 ]  explaining the significance of the Penzias/Wilson observations failed to recognize and cite the previous work of Gamow and his collaborators. [ citation needed ]