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Walter Bodmer

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Sir
Walter Bodmer
FRSFRSE
Walter Bodmer, 2023
Born
Walter Fred Bodmer

(1936-01-10)10 January 1936(age 88)[6]
Frankfurt,Nazi Germany
EducationManchester Grammar School
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge(BA, PhD)
Spouse
​
​
(m.1956; died 2001)​
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisThe study of population genetics and gene effects, with special reference to Primula vulgaris and the house mouse(1959)
Academic advisorsRonald Fisher[2]
Doctoral students
Website
Sir Walter Bodmer
Walter Bodmer presenting at the ICG-18 conference in Nanjing. China

Sir Walter Fred BodmerFRSFRSE(born 10 January 1936[7]) is a German-born Britishhuman geneticist.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Early life

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Bodmer was born inFrankfurt,Germany.[15]He was educated atManchester Grammar Schooland went on to study theMathematical Triposat theUniversity of Cambridgeas a student ofClare College, Cambridge.He was awarded his PhD in 1959 from Cambridge for research onpopulation geneticsin thehouse mouseandPrimula vulgaris(primrose) supervised byRonald Fisher.[2]

Career and research

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In 1961 Bodmer joinedJoshua Lederberg's laboratory in the genetics department ofStanford Universityas apostdoctoral researcher,continuing his work onpopulation genetics.[16]In 1962 Walter Bodmer was appointed to the faculty at Stanford. He left Stanford University in 1970 to become the first professor of genetics at theUniversity of Oxford[1].[17]

Bodmer developed models forpopulation geneticsand worked on thehuman leukocyte antigensystem and the use ofsomatic cellhybridsfor humanlinkagestudies. In 1985 he chaired aRoyal Societycommittee which wroteThe Bodmer Report;this has been credited[18]with starting the movement for thepublic understanding of science.[19]

Bodmer was one of the first to suggest the idea of theHuman Genome Project.[20]In 1987 he received theEllison-Cliffe Medalfrom theRoyal Society of Medicine.He was the director of research (1979–1991) and thendirector general(1991–1996) of theImperial Cancer Research Fund.He was alsochancellorof theUniversity of Salford,England (1995–2005; succeeded bySir Martin Harris) andprincipalofHertford College, Oxford(1996–2005; succeeded byDr. John Landers).

In 2005, Bodmer was appointed to lead a £2.3 million project (roughly US$4.5 million) by theWellcome Trustat theUniversity of Oxfordto examine the genetic makeup of the United Kingdom – thePeople of the British Islesproject. He was joined by Oxford ProfessorPeter Donnelly(a population genetics and statistics expert) and the Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow Lon Cardon. 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 presented some of their findings to the public via theChannel 4television series "Faces of Britain". On 14 April 2007, Channel 4 inBritainaired a program that highlighted the study's then-current findings. The project tookDNAsamples from hundreds of volunteers throughout Britain, seeking tell-tale fragments of DNA that would reveal the biological traces of successive waves of colonisers –Celts,Saxons,Vikings,etc. – in various parts of Britain. The findings showed that the Viking invasion of Britain was predominantly from Danish Vikings while theOrkney Islandswere settled by Norwegian Vikings. This research was most recently presented at theGalton Institute's conference on 'New Light on Old Britons' in 2019.[21]Bodmer had previously worked with the Galton Institute as its president from 2008 to 2014.[22]

He has been head of the cancer and immunogenetics laboratory in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at theUniversity of Oxfordsince 1996.[23]Research interests of the laboratory include the fundamental genetics and biology ofcolorectal cancer.

Honours and awards

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Bodmer has won numerous awards including:

His certificate of election to the Royal Society reads:[25]

Distinguished for his theoretical and experimental contributions to genetics. His analyses of population genetics models, especially human, his contribution to the understanding of bacterial transformation, to the understanding of the HL-A system, and to the use of somatic cell hybrids for human linkage studies are outstanding. Few scientists have contributed distinguished work in such a range of fields, and involving such a range of experience of techniques, mathematical and experimental, and such a range of organisms.

Personal life

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Bodmer's father was Jewish so the family were obliged to leave Nazi Germany; in 1938, they settled inManchester,England. In 1956, Walter Bodmer marriedJulia Bodmer (née Pilkington) 1934–2001;she also became a well-known geneticist. They had two sons and a daughter.[6]Lady Bodmer died in 2001.

Interviews

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  • Bodmer, Walter; Blythe, Max (2017). "Sir Walter Bodmer FRS in interview with Dr Max Blythe: Interview 1". Oxford Brookes University.doi:10.24384/000458.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
  • Bodmer, Walter; Blythe, Max (1998). "Sir Walter Bodmer FRS in interview with Dr Max Blythe: Interview 2". Oxford Brookes University.doi:10.24384/000007.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)

References

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  1. ^Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (1981)."The William Allan Memorial Award: Presented to Walter F. Bodmer, PhD, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics New York, September 24–27, 1980".American Journal of Human Genetics.33(5): 659–63.PMC1685126.PMID7027789.
  2. ^abcWalter Bodmerat theMathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^Feldman, Marcus (1979).Some topics in theoretical population genetics(PhD thesis). Stanford University.OCLC651748270.
  4. ^Goodfellow, Peter Neville (1975).Biochemical and Genetic Studies of Human Tissue Antigens(DPhil thesis). University of Oxford.OCLC500453850.EThOSuk.bl.ethos.456975.
  5. ^van Heyningen, Veronica(1973).Mitochondrial and other Enzymes in Somatic Cell Hybrids.ora.ox.ac.uk(DPhil thesis). University of Oxford.OCLC500471367.Free access icon
  6. ^abAnon (2015)."Bodmer, Sir Walter (Fred)".Who's Who(onlineOxford University Pressed.). A & C Black.doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U7957.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  7. ^The Times10 January 2009. Retrieved 9 January 2010(subscription required)
  8. ^Leslie, S; Winney, B; Hellenthal, G; Davison, D; Boumertit, A; Day, T; Hutnik, K; Royrvik, E. C.; Cunliffe, B; Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2; International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium; Lawson, D. J.; Falush, D; Freeman, C; Pirinen, M; Myers, S; Robinson, M; Donnelly, P; Bodmer, W (2015)."The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population".Nature.519(7543): 309–14.Bibcode:2015Natur.519..309..doi:10.1038/nature14230.PMC4632200.PMID25788095.{{cite journal}}:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ^Rodrigues, N. R.; Rowan, A; Smith, M. E.; Kerr, I. B.; Bodmer, W. F.; Gannon, J. V.; Lane, D. P. (1990)."P53 mutations in colorectal cancer".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.87(19): 7555–9.Bibcode:1990PNAS...87.7555R.doi:10.1073/pnas.87.19.7555.PMC54786.PMID1699228.
  10. ^"Prof Sir Walter Bodmer FRS, Weatherhall Institute for Molecular Medicine".University of Oxford. Archived fromthe originalon 17 April 2015.
  11. ^"Walter Bodmer: Cancer and Immunogenetics Laboratory".University of Oxford. Archived fromthe originalon 4 March 2015.
  12. ^Hemminki, A.; Markie, D.; Tomlinson, I.; Avizienyte, E.; Roth, S.; Loukola, A.; Bignell, G.; Warren, W.; Aminoff, M.; Höglund, P.; Järvinen, H.; Kristo, P.; Pelin, K.; Ridanpää, M.; Salovaara, R.; Toro, T.;Bodmer, W.;Olschwang, S.; Olsen, A. S.;Stratton, M. R.;de la Chapelle, A.; Aaltonen, L. A. (1998). "A serine/threonine kinase gene defective in Peutz-Jeghers syndrome".Nature.391(6663): 184–7.Bibcode:1998Natur.391..184H.doi:10.1038/34432.PMID9428765.S2CID4400728.
  13. ^Bodmer, W; Bonilla, C (2008)."Common and rare variants in multifactorial susceptibility to common diseases".Nature Genetics.40(6): 695–701.doi:10.1038/ng.f.136.PMC2527050.PMID18509313.
  14. ^Walter Bodmer's publicationsindexed by theScopusbibliographic database.(subscription required)
  15. ^"BSI HONORARY MEMBER: Sir Walter Bodmer".British Society of Immunology. Archived fromthe originalon 2 April 2015.
  16. ^"Early Computers at Stanford".Stanford University. Archived fromthe originalon 13 August 2014.
  17. ^Conversation with Walter Bodmer, San Francisco, 4 Dec.2010
  18. ^Sloman, Steven; Fernbach, Philip (2017).The Knowledge Illusion.London: Macmillan. p. 157.ISBN978-1-5098-1106-9.
  19. ^"Public Understanding of Science, 1985".Royal Society. Archived fromthe originalon 19 October 2013.
  20. ^"HUGO presidents".Archived fromthe originalon 8 April 2015.
  21. ^"Past Events – The Galton Institute".Retrieved18 November2020.
  22. ^"Past Presidents – The Galton Institute".Retrieved18 November2020.
  23. ^"Walter Bodmer".Retrieved2 December2020.
  24. ^"Walter Fred Bodmer".13 October 2023.
  25. ^ab"EC/1974/01: Bodmer, Walter Fred".London: The Royal Society. Archived fromthe originalon 15 October 2015.
  26. ^"Sir Walter Bodmer FMedSci FRS".London:Royal Society.Archived fromthe originalon 9 October 2015.
  27. ^ab"Walter Bodmer".
  28. ^"Honorary Graduates 1989 to present".bath.ac.uk.University of Bath.Retrieved18 February2012.
  29. ^"| British Society for Immunology".
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Academic offices
Preceded by Chancellor of the University of Salford
1995–2006 		Succeeded by
Preceded by PrincipalofHertford College, Oxford
1996–2005 		Succeeded by
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