Robert Olby

Robert Olby

Robert Cecil Olby (born in London in 1933) is a research professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Formerly at the University of Leeds, UK, Robert Olby is known as a historian of 19th and 20th century biology, his special fields being genetics and molecular biology. He is well known for his work on the history of biology (see list of works at his webpage). He is known outside of biology, having frequently been asked to participate in various commemorations of famous scientific events (example) and to comment on science topics for the mass media (example).

He completed a scientific biography of the late Francis Crick, co-discoverer with James D. Watson of the structure of DNA in 1953 published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press on 25 August 2009, with support from the National Science Foundation and the award of an Archives Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge. The biography has 21 chapters and is 450 pages long. Its publication before Crick's death in 2004 was disallowed by Crick; at 166,000 words the new book is the best scientific biography of the late Francis Crick to date and is entitled " Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets", after an article in The New York Times on February 2, 1962.

His major contribution to the history of molecular biology is well documented in The History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 (1870 to 1990) published by CUP in 1992, by direct reference to his The Path to the Double Helix: The Discovery of DNA, first published in 1974, and revised and republished in 1994. His Francis Crick biography was the pinnacle of a long career in scientific writing during which he has interviewed many leading British and American scientists including Bernal, Brenner, Crick, Huxley, Klug, Perutz, Watson and Wilkins.

His family includes daughters Fleur Olby, the well known artist and Professor Natasha Olby of North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine.