Who developed the first DNA paternity test?

The process of DNA fingerprinting was developed by Alec Jeffreys in 1984, and it first became available for paternity testing in 1988. Before this sort of DNA analysis was available, blood types were the most common factor considered in human paternity testing. Blood groups are a popular example of Mendelian genetics at work. After all, there are numerous human blood groups with multiple alleles, and these alleles exhibit a range of dominance patterns. Thanks to Jeffreys paternity testing has now developed into a very precise science.

Today, the best-known blood-typing system is ABO typing, which involves the presence of antigens on red blood cells that are encoded by the ABO locus on human chromosome 9. In cases of questioned paternity, ABO blood-typing can be used to exclude a man from being a child's father.

Without Alec John Jeffreys, who was born in January 1950 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England and became a geneticist, techniques may not have been developed and used for genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling which are now used worldwide in forensic science to assist police detective work and to resolve many paternity and immigration disputes. He is a professor of genetics at the University of Leicester, and he became an honorary freeman of the City of Leicester in November 1992. In 1994, he was knighted by the Queen in the UK for services to genetics.