John Fincham

John Robert Stanley Fincham FRS FRSE (11 August 1926 – February 9 2005) was a noted British geneticist who made important contributions to biochemical genetics and microbial genetics. Perhaps most notably, he obtained the first direct evidence for the "one gene-one enzyme" hypothesis. He accomplished this considerable feat using mutants of Neurospora crassa deficient in a specific enzyme.

Fincham was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences. He did his PhD in the Botany School at Cambridge and then did a year's postgraduate research at Cal Tech with Sterling Emerson (whose daughter Ann he married). [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article223045.ece]

Fincham was the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge University between 1984 and 1991. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1969 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1978.

External links

* [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article223045.ece Obituary; Professor J.R.S. Fincham: Biochemical geneticist specialising in fungi] , concisely and well written by geneticist Robin Holliday, published in "The Independent" (London), May 25, 2005
* [http://www.rse.org.uk/fellowship/obits/obits_alpha/fincham_john.pdf RSE obituary (pdf)]