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Mary-Claire King (born 1946) is an American human geneticist. She is professor at the University of...

Mary-Claire King (born 1946) is an American human geneticist. She is professor at the University of Washington, where she studies the genetics and interaction of genetics and environmental influences on human conditions such as HIV, lupus, inherited deafness, and also breast and ovarian cancer. King is known for three major accomplishments: identifying breast cancer genes; demonstrating that humans and chimpanzees are 99% genetically identical; and applying genomic sequencing to identify victims of human rights abuses. King began her career with a degree in mathematics (cum laude) from Carleton College at the age of 19. She completed her doctorate in 1973 at the University of California, Berkeley in genetics and epidemiology, after her advisor Allan Wilson persuaded her to switch from mathematics to genetics. In her doctoral work at Berkeley (1973), she demonstrated through comparative protein analysis that chimpanzees and humans are 99% genetically identical, a finding that stunned the public at the time, revolutionized evolutionary biology, and is today common knowledge. King's work supported Allan Wilson's view that chimpanzees and humans diverged only five million years ago,