Utah’s History of Genetic Innovation: Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism

In 1980, a landmark paper described restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), a method predateding high volume DNA sequencing, that could be used to identify disease-causing genes. Ray Gesteland, Ph.D., professor emeritus of human genetics at the University of Utah, remembers hearing about the technology from his colleagues as they were still working it out. He explains how the idea came about, what it is, and how it made modern genetics possible. In a second interview, Gesteland talks about what brings some of the world’s best geneticists to the University of Utah.