David William Fulker (8 March 1937 – 9 July 1998) was a British behavioural geneticist at the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

's Institute for Behavioral Genetics. Among positions of esteem, he was elected president of the

Behavior Genetics Association The Behavior Genetics Association (BGA) is a learned society established in 1970 and which promotes research into the connections between heredity and behavior, both human and animal. Its members support education and training in behavior genetic ...

(1982), and was

executive editor Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dire ...

of the society's journal ''

Behavior Genetics Behavioural genetics, also referred to as behaviour genetics, is a field of scientific research that uses genetic methods to investigate the nature and origins of individual differences in behaviour. While the name "behavioural genetics" ...

''. In honour of this role, the society maintains an annual Fulker Award, for the best paper in the journal each year, and for which the award is "$1000 and a ''decent'' bottle of wine".

Contributions to behaviour genetics

In 1970, Fulker and John L. Jinks published a proposal that the

biometric Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...

genetic approach should be applied to human behaviour.Jinks JL & Fulker DW. (1970). A comparison of the biometrical-genetical, MAVA and classical approaches to the analysis of human behavior. ''Psychological Bulletin'', 73, 311–349. Seemingly a commonplace idea today, this was a landmark paper, and became a citation classic. At the

Institute of Psychiatry The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a research institution dedicated to discovering what causes mental illness and diseases of the brain. In addition, its aim is to help identify new treatments for them and ways ...

, Fulker's research established that many behaviours, not only in rodents but also in humans and in such "higher" mental traits as

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, m ...

and also psychiatric diseases show genetic influences. Producing these results entailed the development of novel analytical approaches, on which Fulker collaborated with John DeFries. Fulker worked on combining quantitative and molecular genetic approaches, adapting the DeFries–Fulker regression approach to this purpose. With a former PhD student Lon R. Cardon (who went on to discover linkage for dyslexia on chromosome 6 and to work in the human

International HapMap Project The International HapMap Project was an organization that aimed to develop a haplotype map (HapMap) of the human genome, to describe the common patterns of human genetic variation. HapMap is used to find genetic variants affecting health, disease ...

) and Stacey S. Cherny, Fulker worked on methods for linkage and association analysis of quantitative traits.

Career

Fulker's father had been a miner in Wales, but moved the family to London, where Fulker grew up. He was initially trained as a teacher, and working in this profession (teaching chemistry) and as a photographer. Fulker subsequently obtained a

BSc A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

at Birkbeck College,

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, graduating with first class honours, and deciding to work in

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

. Fulker pursued this interest, obtaining both a Masters and a PhD at

Birmingham University , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

supervised by John Jinks. Exceptionally for a post-graduate student, his first publication (on fruit fly mating) was published in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

'' in 1966. Fulker joined the staff at Birmingham as a lecturer where he remained until moving in 1975 to a senior lectureship at the

in London, where he also directed its animal laboratories at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. In 1985 Fulker moved to a professorship at the

's Institute for Behavioral Genetics at Boulder. In 1996, he was recruited back to the

to the new Medical Research Council funded Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre. Fulker was married to Angela Elliott with whom he had one child, Rosanna, born in 1985 and a stepdaughter, Katherine.

Contributions to behaviour genetics

Career

References

Further reading