Jonathan Roger Beckwith (born December 25, 1935, in Cambridge, Massachusetts)[1] is an American microbiologist and geneticist.
He is the American Cancer Society Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
He trained with Sydney Brenner, Arthur Pardee, and François Jacob at the Institut Pasteur in France before arriving at Harvard University.
[2] Some of the researchers worked in the Beckwith laboratory at the Harvard Medical School and consisted of several now well-known scientists and doctors including James A. Shapiro and Lawrence Eron, MD.
He spoke out against the testing of boys for XYY chromosomes and was a member of the ELSI (Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications) committee of the Human Genome Project initiated by James D. Watson.