The Life of Professor Robert Hugh Pritchard: The Rise of Genetics at Leicester

Colleagues and former students of the late Professor Pritchard (aka Bob), an eminent UK geneticist, have gathered memories about his scientific and personal life. Bob's early, crucial contributions to decipher gene structure and mechanism of recombination in fungi, and those in bacterial physiology and the cell cycle, are briefly summarized. Bob was appointed as a young professor (34 years old) to open a new Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester, a department that thrived under his leadership to become internationally recognized for the quality of its scientific research and teaching. Pritchard's research studies on Microbial Genetics and Physiology and his intellectual leadership were pioneering and instrumental in the development of Molecular Biology and Bacterial Cell Biology.
Recollections from the contributors about their interactions with Bob will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the history of Genetics in the UK, during the 1960s and 1970s. To future generations of investigators, they provide insights into how unbiased honesty, humbleness, incisiveness, generosity and friendship are cornerstones for the advancement of human knowledge.