John Robert Stanley Fincham FRS FRSE (11 August 1926 – 9 February 2005) was a noted British geneticist who made important contributions to biochemical genetics and microbial genetics

Microbial genetics

Microbial genetics is a subject area within microbiology and genetic engineering. It studies the genetics of very small organisms. This involves the study of the genotype of microbial species and also the expression system in the form of phenotypes.It also involves the study of genetic processes...

. Perhaps most notably, he obtained the first direct evidence for the "one gene-one enzyme" hypothesis. He accomplished this considerable feat using mutant

Mutant

In biology and especially genetics, a mutant is an individual, organism, or new genetic character, arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is a base-pair sequence change within the DNA of a gene or chromosome of an organism resulting in the creation of a new character or trait not...

s of Neurospora crassa

Neurospora crassa

Neurospora crassa is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestation of French bakeries in 1843. N...

deficient in a specific enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 called glutamate dehydrogenase

Glutamate dehydrogenase

Glutamate dehydrogenase is an enzyme, present in most microbes and the mitochondria of eukaryotes, as are some of the other enzymes required for urea synthesis, that converts glutamate to α-Ketoglutarate, and vice versa. In animals, the produced ammonia is, however, usually bled off to the urea...

.

Fincham was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge

Peterhouse, Cambridge

Peterhouse is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the oldest college of the University, having been founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely...

, where he read Natural Sciences. He did his PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in the Botany School at Cambridge and then did a year's postgraduate research at the California Institute of Technology

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 with Sterling Emerson (whose daughter Ann he married).

Fincham was the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics

Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics

The Arthur Balfour Professorship of Genetics is one of the senior professorships in genetics at the University of Cambridge, founded in 1912.The chair was endowed by Reginald Baliol Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher, according to whom the money was "placed in [his] hands" by an anonymous benefactor...

 at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 between 1984 and 1991. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1969 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1978.