My friend and colleague, Dick Cotton, who has died aged 74, was a medical researcher who was internationally prominent in the field of human genetics. He had a long and distinguished career as both an innovative researcher and as a persuasive activist promoting the prevention and treatment of genetic disorders and birth defects.
Dick grew up on the family farm in Wangaratta, Victoria, the only child of Esther and Graham Cotton. His father, an orange farmer, died when Dick was three years old. Dick went as a boarder to Melbourne grammar school, and graduated from the School of Agricultural Science at the University of Melbourne in 1963.
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