Professor Steve Jones BSc PhD

Degrees

University of Edinburgh; B.Sc. (1st Class Hons) 1966; PhD 1971. Honorary degrees from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and at Cardiff, The Open University, Brunel University, and the Universities of East Anglia, Edinburgh, Essex, Lausanne, Liverpool and Westminster.

Appointments

University College London. Professor of Genetics, 1978-06
University of California. (Riverside, Santa Barbara & Davis). Faculty Research Associate, 1971,'72,'73,'74,'75,'85,'87
Harvard University. Summer School Staff, 1976
University College Botswana.Visiting Senior Lecturer in Zoology, 1978
University of Sierra Leone. Visiting Senior Lecturer, 1982
Flinders University of South Australia Visiting Senior Lecturer, 1983

Research Interests

The central problem of evolutionary biology - and of genetics itself - is to understand diversity. Other unresolved issues include the role of natural selection and the nature of the genetic differences between species.Steve has been concerned with each of these, and has studied the ecological genetics of snails, fruitflies and humans; each of which has complementary advantages and disadvantages. Snails of the genus Cepaea have a striking polymorphism for shell characters and are ecologically tractable, but are difficult to breed. Drosophila breed easily and are genetically well characterised; but their ecology is scarcely understood. Information on the genetics of human populations is expanding, and the extent of written and other records means that humans are very suitable for the study of historical processes in evolution. As the field has developed, Steve's interests have moved towards human genetics.

Miscellaneous

 
For several years Steve has been involved with the media, largely in presenting scientific work but also in a more general context. He has appeared on BBC Radio on some two hundred occasions. He gave the 1991 Reith Lectures on 'The Language of the Genes' and has since then written and presented the Radio 3 series on science and the arts, 'Blue Skie' and a six-part TV series on human genetics, 'In the Blood' which was broadcast in May and June 1996. He has also appeared in various other TV programmes, from Question Time to Late Review to Newsnight . He has an adequate speaking knowledge of French and a reading knowledge of Spanish.

In addition, Steve has written extensively in the press on scientific issues and has a regular column in The Daily Telegraph – 'View from the Lab' - which has appeared on more than two hundred occasions. Steve won the Rhone-Poulenc book prize and the Yorkshire Post first book prize in 1994; and the BP Natural World Book Prize in 1999.

In 1995 Steve was a member of the NCR Non-Fiction Book Prize judging panel and in 2000 of the Guardian First Book Prize equivalent. He was awarded the Royal Society Faraday Medal for public understanding of science in 1997 and the Institute of Biology Charter medal in 2003.

Publications

Steve Jones and B van Loon Genetics for Beginners 1991 Icon Books
Steve Jones, R.D Martin and D Pilbeam (eds). 1992 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Cambridge University.Press.
The Language of the Genes HarperCollins 1993 (revised edition 2000).
Steve Jones and K Taylor. 1994 Genetics: A Third Level Course. Open Univ Press.
In The Blood. HarperCollins 1995
S Bolsover, J Hyams, J S Jones, E Sheppard 1997. From Genes to Cells. Wiley
Almost like a Whale: The Origin of Species Updated 1999 Anchor Books. (published in the USA as Darwin's Ghost, 2000).
2003 Y:The Descent of Men. Little, Brown. (US: Houghton Mifflin).
2005 The Single Helix: a Turn around the World of Science Little, Brown
2007 Coral: a Pessimist in Paradise. Little, Brown

Plus more than a hundred papers in scientific journals.