In 1970, Fulker and John L. Jinks published a proposal that the biometric genetic approach should be applied to human behaviour.[2] Seemingly a commonplace idea today, this was a landmark paper, and became a citation classic.[citation needed]
At the Institute of Psychiatry, Fulker's research established that many behaviours, not only in rodents but also in humans and in such "higher" mental traits as personality 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) 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 in psychology at Birkbeck College, London University, graduating with first class honours, and deciding to work in genetics.
Fulker pursued this interest, obtaining both a Masters and a PhD at Birmingham University supervised by John Jinks. Exceptionally for a post-graduate student, his first publication (on fruit fly mating) was published in Science in 1966.
Fulker was married to Angela Elliott with whom he had one child, Rosanna, born in 1985 and a stepdaughter, Katherine.
References
↑Hewitt, John K. (2005). "Announcement of the Fulker Award for a Paper Published in Behavior Genetics, Volume 34, 2004". Behavior Genetics. 35 (6): 791–792. doi:10.1007/s10519-005-7286-x. S2CID189842943.
↑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.
