Walter Bodmer

Sir Walter Bodmer got his BA in mathematics (1956) and then his Ph.D. in population genetics (1959) under Sir Ronald Fisher at Cambridge University. He did his post-doctoral work in molecular biology under Dr. Joshua Lederberg at Stanford and then was on the faculty of the Genetics Department in the Stanford University Medical School until 1970, ending up as a Full Professor. He returned to England in 1970 to become Professor of Genetics and head of a new department at Oxford University, and then in 1979 became Director of Research, and later Director General, of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Since 1996 he has been head of cancer and immunogenetics laboratory at the Weatherall Insitute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University, and from 1996 to 2005 was also the Principal of Hertford College, Oxford.

Walter Bodmer became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 1981, and was Knighted in 1986 for his contributions to science. In 2013 he was awarded a Royal Society Royal Medal for seminal contributions to population genetics, gene mapping, and understanding of familial genetic disease. He is the recipient of more than 20 honorary degrees and is an Honorary Fellow or member of more than 15 medical and scientific societies and professional bodies. Walter Bodmer was amongst the earliest to suggest the human genome project and was the second President of HUGO, the Human Genome Organisation.