Sir Alec Jeffreys
E458545
Sir Alec Jeffreys is a British geneticist best known for inventing DNA fingerprinting, a breakthrough technique that revolutionized forensic science and paternity testing.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Alec John Jeffreys | 1 |
| Sir Alec Jeffreys canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4661866 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sir Alec Jeffreys Context triple: [Mendel Medal, notableRecipient, Sir Alec Jeffreys]
-
A.
William Cary Sanger
William Cary Sanger was an American lawyer and politician who served in the early 20th century U.S. War Department and was involved in military and governmental affairs.
-
B.
John Sulston
John Sulston was a British biologist and Nobel laureate renowned for his pioneering work on the genetics and cell lineage of the nematode C. elegans and for his leadership in the Human Genome Project.
-
C.
Sir Tim Hunt
Sir Tim Hunt is a British biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate recognized for his discovery of key regulators of the cell cycle.
-
D.
John Meurig Thomas
John Meurig Thomas was a renowned Welsh chemist and materials scientist known for his pioneering work in heterogeneous catalysis and solid-state chemistry.
-
E.
Stephen Hodgkin
Stephen Hodgkin is a notable individual who shares the Hodgkin surname, recognized enough to be specifically cited as a bearer of the name.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sir Alec Jeffreys Target entity description: Sir Alec Jeffreys is a British geneticist best known for inventing DNA fingerprinting, a breakthrough technique that revolutionized forensic science and paternity testing.
-
A.
William Cary Sanger
William Cary Sanger was an American lawyer and politician who served in the early 20th century U.S. War Department and was involved in military and governmental affairs.
-
B.
John Sulston
John Sulston was a British biologist and Nobel laureate renowned for his pioneering work on the genetics and cell lineage of the nematode C. elegans and for his leadership in the Human Genome Project.
-
C.
Sir Tim Hunt
Sir Tim Hunt is a British biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate recognized for his discovery of key regulators of the cell cycle.
-
D.
John Meurig Thomas
John Meurig Thomas was a renowned Welsh chemist and materials scientist known for his pioneering work in heterogeneous catalysis and solid-state chemistry.
-
E.
Stephen Hodgkin
Stephen Hodgkin is a notable individual who shares the Hodgkin surname, recognized enough to be specifically cited as a bearer of the name.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
academic
ⓘ
geneticist ⓘ human ⓘ scientist ⓘ |
| academicDegree | Doctor of Philosophy ⓘ |
| almaMater | University of Oxford ⓘ |
| awardReceived |
Albert Einstein World Award of Science
ⓘ
linked to:
Albert Einstein World Science Award
Australia Prize ⓘ Gairdner Foundation International Award ⓘ Knight Bachelor ⓘ Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research ⓘ Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine ⓘ Royal Medal ⓘ Wollaston Medal ⓘ |
| birthCountry | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| birthDate | 1950-01-09 ⓘ |
| birthPlace | Oxford ⓘ |
| citizenship | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| contributedTo |
forensic science
ⓘ
paternity testing ⓘ |
| discovered | DNA fingerprinting technique ⓘ |
| educatedAt | Merton College, Oxford ⓘ |
| employer | University of Leicester ⓘ |
| familyName | Jeffreys ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
genetics
ⓘ
molecular biology ⓘ |
| givenName | Alec ⓘ |
| honor | knighthood ⓘ |
| honorificPrefix | Sir ⓘ |
| influenced |
legal use of genetic evidence
ⓘ
modern forensic DNA analysis ⓘ |
| invention |
DNA fingerprinting
ⓘ
DNA profiling methods ⓘ |
| knownFor |
DNA fingerprinting
ⓘ
DNA profiling ⓘ forensic genetics ⓘ |
| languageSpoken | English ⓘ |
| memberOf | Royal Society ⓘ |
| name |
Alec John Jeffreys
ⓘ
linked to:
Sir Alec Jeffreys
|
| nationality | British ⓘ |
| notableAchievement |
first use of DNA evidence in a criminal case in the UK
ⓘ
first use of DNA profiling to resolve an immigration case ⓘ |
| notableWork | application of minisatellite DNA to human identification ⓘ |
| positionHeld | Professor of Genetics at the University of Leicester ⓘ |
| sexOrGender | male ⓘ |
| title | Fellow of the Royal Society ⓘ |
| workLocation | Leicester ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Sir Alec Jeffreys Description of subject: Sir Alec Jeffreys is a British geneticist best known for inventing DNA fingerprinting, a breakthrough technique that revolutionized forensic science and paternity testing.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Sir Alec Jeffreys