Born in
Dearborn, Missouri, Boyd was educated at
Harvard and
Boston University. His career led to appointment as Professor of
Immunochemistry at Boston University. Boyd's signal contribution was to discover that human blood groups are inherited and not influenced by environment. By genetic analysis of blood groups he hypothesized that human races are populations that differ by
alleles. On that basis, he divided the world population into 13 geographically distinct races with different blood group gene profiles. In 1955, Boyd co-published the book
Races and People with
Isaac Asimov; they were both then professors at
Boston University School of Medicine. Later, Boyd coined the term
lectin. He also studied the blood groups of
mummies. Boyd also wrote and published several science fiction short stories in collaboration with his wife Boyd's papers were donated to the
National Library of Medicine by Mrs. Cassandra Boyd in 1983. ==Selected bibliography==