Editing Alec Jeffreys (section)

==Early life and education==
Jeffreys was born into a middle-class family in [[Oxford]], where he spent the first six years of his life until 1956 when the family moved to [[Luton]], [[Bedfordshire]].<ref name=whoswho/> He says he inherited his curiosity and inventiveness from his father and paternal grandfather, who held a number of patents.<ref name="DIDiscs AJ"/> When he was eight, his father gave him a [[chemistry set]], which he enhanced over the next few years with extra chemicals, even including a small bottle of [[sulfuric acid|sulphuric acid]].<ref name="DIDiscs AJ"/> He says he liked making small explosions, but an accidental splash of the sulphuric acid caused a burn, which left a permanent scar on his chin (now under his beard).<ref name="DIDiscs AJ"/> His father also bought him a [[Victorian era|Victorian-era]] brass [[microscope]],<ref name = "nature med 2005"/> which he used to examine biological specimens.<ref name="DIDiscs AJ"/> At about 12, he made a small dissecting kit (including a scalpel, crafted from a flattened pin) which he used to dissect a [[bumblebee]], but he got into trouble with his parents when he progressed to dissecting a larger specimen. One Sunday morning he found a deceased cat on the road while doing his [[Newspaper delivery|paper round]] and took it home in his bag. He relates that he started to dissect it on the dining room table before Sunday lunch, causing a foul smell throughout the house after he ruptured its intestines.<ref name="DIDiscs AJ"/>

Jeffreys was a pupil at Luton Grammar School and then [[Luton Sixth Form College]].<ref name="UofL 2004">{{cite web|url=http://www.le.ac.uk/ua/pr/gen%20supp.pdf |title=The Gene Genius |date=September 2004 |publisher=University of Leicester |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111109215809/http://www.le.ac.uk/ua/pr/gen%20supp.pdf |archive-date=9 November 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> He won a scholarship to study at [[Merton College, Oxford]] on a four-year course, where he graduated in 1971 with [[British undergraduate degree classification|first-class honours]] in [[biochemistry]].<ref name=CV-AJ/> Jeffreys completed his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree on the [[mitochondria]] of cultured mammalian cells, as a postgraduate student at the Genetics Laboratory at the University of Oxford.<ref name=jeffreysphd>{{cite thesis |degree=DPhil |first=Alec |last=Jeffreys |title=Studies on the mitochondria of cultured mammalian cells |publisher=University of Oxford |date=1975 |url=http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph019879695 |website=bodleian.ox.ac.uk |id={{EThOS|uk.bl.ethos.460797}} |oclc=500483911 |access-date=29 March 2018 |archive-date=27 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200527135043/http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=SOLO&docid=oxfaleph019879695&context=L&search_scope=LSCOP_OX |url-status=dead }}</ref>