Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys is the god of forensic science says bestselling crime author in new video

Bestselling crime writer Patricia Cornwell has paid tribute to the University of Leicester Professor who invented the technique of genetic fingerprinting during her visit to De Montfort Hall in Leicester to give a talk as part of the University Literary Leicester festival 2016 and the Chancellor's Distinguished Lecture Series

She visited Leicester to give a talk about her new book Chaos. Patricia is widely known for writing a popular series of novels featuring the heroine Dr Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner. Her books have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

During her visit, she explained what interests her most about crime and the influence Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, inventor of genetic fingerprinting while working at the University in 1984, has had on her career.

She also discussed her gratitude to the University and showed her support to the city by wearing a Leicester City football shirt and scarf while eating Walkers crisps during her chat with Provost, Professor Mark Peel.

Talking about the influence Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys has had on her career, she said: "Alec Jeffreys is the god of forensic science as far as I'm concerned - he didn't invent DNA but he came up with the whole notion of using DNA to identify individuals and then had the brilliance to think that it could apply to crime. My career indirectly got launched by what he did because DNA is the main character in that book (Postmortem) when no one else was writing about it - that came out in 1990. So I have a very personal history that has to do with him even though I've never met him. DNA was one of the first things I heard about when I went to see that medical examiner's office in Virginia - the first time I ever stepped foot in a morgue and this medical examiner said there's two things that they are talking about now - one of those is using lasers - and we thought that sounds cool! The other is this thing called DNA which may help in identification, and I said - I want to learn about these things. That was in 1984, when I had that conversation. That's when I started my research so I think I owe a debt of gratitude to Leicester University and I didn't know it at the time."

You can watch the full interview with Patricia below and read the full feature here

You can watch her talk, 'In Conversation with Patricia Cornwell' below: