Interviews with Human and Medical Geneticists

Between 2003 and 2008 a series of 72 recorded interviews was made with older human and medical geneticists by Professor Peter Harper, Cardiff University. Most of those interviewed were from Britain or continental Europe, and their countries and field of work are summarised in the accompanying list. Not all interviews are full biographical accounts and they were often made opportunistically under less than ideal conditions.

Unfortunately it has proved impossible to obtain funding support for undertaking them, or for editing and preparing the interviews for wider access, so in 2008 new interviews were suspended to allow this work to be done without specific funds, albeit at a slower pace, and with less associated documentation. 

Currently 65 transcripts have been fully edited and are accessible on this website. All interview transcripts have been checked, and permission given, by the interviewee. A further 8 interviews are still being processed. It is hoped to extend the series in the future, should funding become available.

The series complements for Europe the corresponding Amenrican interview series being undertaken as the oral history of human genetics project (www.socgen.ucla.edu/hgp/).

Exerpts from 10 interviews on the theme of human chromosomes have previously been made available as audioclips and are now also given here.

For a small number of additional interviews, for various reasons, recording proved impossible. The names are listed here since written background notes and other information exist in most cases.

All recordings, primary transcripts and other material relating to the interviews are archived as part of Cardiff University's Special Collection and Archives (SCOLAR)