Weatherall, David John (1933– )

English physician and prominent exponent of the role of genetics in modern medicine. Weatherall researched the genetic basis for the thalassaemias, a group of inherited anaemias that result from faulty haemoglobin synthesis.

These conditions are particularly prevalent in people living near the Mediterranean Sea, some 20% of the population of some parts of Italy being carriers of the disease. The geographic distribution of some thalassaemia genes parallels that of malaria, which suggests that heterozygotes may benefit from the presence of the mutation, as in sickle-cell disease. These discoveries have had a major impact on molecular biology, medicine, and genetics since they have provided striking illustrations of the consequences of mutations in human disease.

Weatherall graduated from the University of Liverpool in 1954 and held various junior medical jobs before taking up a career in medical research at Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1960. He then moved back to England to take up a teaching post at Liverpool University and was made professor of haematology there in 1971. Since then, he was appointed professor of clinical medicine In 1974 and then regius professor of medicine in 1992 at Oxford University. He is also the director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974 and knighted in 1987 for his contribution to the genetics of human disease.