- Walter Bodmer
Sir Walter Bodmer (born 1936) is a German-born British human geneticist. Bodmer has developed models for
population genetics and done work on theHLA system and the use ofsomatic cell hybrids for humanlinkage studies.In 1985 he chaired a
Royal Society committee which wrote "The Bodmer Report" credited with starting the movement for the public understanding of science. [http://www.the-ba.net/NR/rdonlyres/18C31BF6-B987-4626-8161-0EF01DC4111F/0/briggs.pdf] p22–23.Bodmer became the Principal of
Hertford College, Oxford , in 1996. He was theDirector General (1991–1996) and director of research (1979–1991) of theImperial Cancer Research Fund . He became aFellow of theRoyal Society in 1974 and was knighted in 1986.As well as his being Principal, he is also the Head of the
Cancer and ImmunogeneticsLaboratory in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at theUniversity of Oxford .Research interests of the laboratory include the fundamentalgenetics andbiology ofcolorectal cancer .He retired as Principal of Hertford College towards the end of 2005, to be replaced by Dr. John Landers. He also left his position as Chancellor of the
University of Salford ,England , in April 2005, to be replaced by Sir Martin Harris.In 2005, Sir Walter Bodmer was appointed to lead a £2.3 million project (roughly 4.5 million USD) by the
Wellcome Trust at theOxford University to examine the genetic makeup of theUnited Kingdom - the People of the British Isles project. Professor Sir Walter Bodmer was joined by Oxford ProfessorPeter Donnelly (a population genetics and statistics expert) and the Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow Professor Lon Cardon.Professor Bodmer said "Our aim is to characterise the genetic make-up of the British population and relate this to the historical and archaeological evidence."
The researchers have also begun to present some of their findings to the public via the
Channel 4 television series "Faces of Britain ." On 14 April 2007, Channel 4 in Britain aired a program that highlighted the study’s current findings.The project will take
DNA samples from hundreds of volunteers throughout Britain and find tell-tale fragments of DNA that reveal the biological traces of successive waves of colonisers —Celt s,Saxons ,Vikings , etc. — in various parts of Britain.The findings show that the
Viking invasion of Britain was predominately from Danish Vikings while theOrkney Islands were settled by Norwegian Vikings. Additionally, the results show that theCornish people have the MC1R gene which makes them a trueCelt ic race that are more closely related to the Welsh, Irish, and Bretons rather than their English neighbours.External links
* [http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/e-h/face.html Channel 4s "Faces of Britain"]
* [http://www.imm.ox.ac.uk/pages/research/cancer_research/colorectal.htm/ Colorectal cancer research at the IMM]References
* [http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqSearch=RefNo='EC/1974/01'&dsqDb=Catalog Royal Society citation]
* [http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/people/bodmer.gifPortraits of Statisticians]
* [http://www.antigenic.com/ ANTIGENICS (Cancer Research Body)]
* [http://www.imm.ox.ac.uk/ Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine]
* [http://www.salford.ac.uk/ University of Salford]
* [http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1499065.htm Radio National Australia interview with Sir Walter]
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