Patricia Jacobs facts for kids

Patricia Ann Jacobs, born on October 8, 1934, is a famous Scottish geneticist. She studies human genes. She is a professor at the University of Southampton. She also helps lead research at the Wessex Regional Genetics Laboratory.

Early Life and Education

Patricia Jacobs was born on October 8, 1934. Her parents were Sadie and Cyril Jacobs. She went to the University of St Andrews in Scotland. In 1956, she earned a special degree in zoology. Zoology is the study of animals.

Discoveries in Genetics

In 1959, Patricia Jacobs made an important discovery. She worked with John Strong. They found an extra X chromosome in some males. This condition is called Klinefelter syndrome. People with this syndrome have a 47,XXY karyotype. A karyotype is a picture of a person's chromosomes. This discovery happened just after another scientist, Jérôme Lejeune, described Down syndrome.

Jacobs also studied another condition called XYY syndrome. This syndrome means a male has an extra Y chromosome (47,XYY). It was first found by Avery Sandberg in 1961. Jacobs and her team later studied 315 men in a hospital. These men had developmental disabilities. Their research was the first to look closely at XYY syndrome.

However, this early research had some problems. The studies used small groups of people. They also did not choose people randomly. This led to some wrong ideas about XYY individuals. For a while, people thought XYY individuals were often aggressive. Later, better studies showed this was not true.

Awards and Honors

Patricia Jacobs has received many awards. These awards recognize her important work in genetics. In 1999, she received the Mauro Baschirotto Award. This award is from the European Society of Human Genetics. She also received the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology in 2011.

In 1999, she was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). This was for her great contributions to genetics. In 2010, she became a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

She also received the William Allan Memorial Award in 1981. This award is from the American Society of Human Genetics. In 1993, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. She was also the first person to receive the KS&A Patricia Jacobs Lifetime Achievement Award. This award is from a US charity.

Personal Life

In 1972, Patricia Jacobs married Newton Morton. She has two step-daughters and three step-sons.