Hermann J. Muller (1890-1967) made many contributions to the understanding of genetic mutation, the gene, and radiation genetics, but he is primarily remembered for his demonstration that mutations could be artificially induced by x rays.
Hermann Joseph Muller. Muller attended Columbia University from 1907 to 1909. At Columbia his interest in genetics was fired first by E.B. Wilson, the founder of the cellular approach to heredity, and later by T.H. Morgan, who had just introduced the fruit fly Drosophila as a tool in experimental genetics.
Muller frequently warned of long-term dangers of radioactive fallout from nuclear war and nuclear testing, which resulted in greater public scrutiny of these practices. Muller was born in New York City, the son of Frances (Lyons) and Hermann Joseph Muller, Sr., an artisan who worked with metals.
From 1937 to 1940, at the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh, Muller studied the chromosomal basis of embryonic death from radiation damage. World War II forced Muller to return to the United States.
Herman Muller studied the hereditary characteristics of fruit flies and, in 1927, discovered that the number of genetic mutations observed in fruit flies increased when they were exposed to x-rays.
By comparing the results of his x-ray experiments with control cultures, Muller confirmed that x-rays caused the genetic mutations and that the mutations did not spontaneously arise, or arise from normal cell function.
Hermann Joseph Muller, (born Dec. 21, 1890, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died April 5, 1967, Indianapolis, Ind.), American geneticist best remembered for his demonstration that mutations and hereditary changes can be caused by X rays striking the genes and chromosomes of living cells.
A technique devised by Muller to rapidly screen fruit flies for recessive X chromosome lethal mutations. The ClB chromosome carries a recessive lethal (l) a dominant marker (B) and an inversion (crossover suppressor C).
What results did Muller obtain and what could he infer from the results of his experiment? - As exposure to X-rays increased, the ratio of type 1 to type 2 outcomes increased. - X-rays induced random mutations in the parental males.
Advanced at the beginning of the 20th century by Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries in his Die Mutationstheorie (1901–03; The Mutation Theory), mutation theory joined two seemingly opposed traditions of evolutionary thought.
Gregor MendelHuman genetics / FatherGregor Johann Mendel, OSA was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brünn, Margraviate of Moravia. Wikipedia
Hermann Joseph Muller ForMemRSHermann Joseph MullerHermann Joseph Muller ForMemRSDiedApril 5, 1967 (aged 76) Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.NationalityAmericanAlma materColumbia UniversityKnown forThe genetic effects of radiation11 more rows
When Medicine Laureate Michael Young spoke to students at an event in China, he expanded his acknowledgements to include his oldest colleague, Drosophila. Thanks to Drosophila fruit flies, he produced insights with profound implications for our understanding of physiology and for human medicine.
CIB Method: This method was developed by Muller for detection of induced sex linked recessive lethal mutations in Drosophila male. This method was invented by Muller and used for the unequivocal demonstration of mutagenic action of X rays.
The Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) describe 12 levels of ability in each of four different language skills – Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The CLB are used in Canada to describe the language ability of people who are learning English.
What Are The 4 Types Of Mutations?Duplication.Deletion.Inversion.Translocation.
His studies of the processes and frequencies of mutations enabled Muller to form a picture of the arrangements and recombinations of genes and later led to his experimental induction of genetic mutations through the use of X rays in 1926.
At this time Muller was able to demonstrate that mutations are the result of breakages in chromosomes and of changes in individual genes. In 1931 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now.
The award of the Nobel Prize to Muller in 1946 increased his opportunities to publicize one of his major concerns—the dangers posed by accumulating spontaneous mutations in the human gene pool as a result of industrial processes and radiation.
After undergoing a nervous breakdown in 1932 due to personal pressures, Muller spent one year at the Kaiser Wilhelm (now Max Planck) Institute in Berlin, where he investigated various physical models for explaining mutations in genes.
The work of the Drosophila group, headed by Morgan, was summarized in 1915 in the book The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity. This book is a cornerstone of classical genetics. Hermann J. Muller examining a phial of fruit flies in his basement laboratory.
Influences. J. T. Patterson. Hermann Joseph Muller (December 21, 1890 – April 5, 1967) was an American geneticist, educator, and Nobel laureate best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation ( mutagenesis ), as well as his outspoken political beliefs. Muller frequently warned of long-term dangers ...
Muller was born in New York City, the son of Frances (Lyons) and Hermann Joseph Muller, Sr., an artisan who worked with metals. Muller was a third-generation American whose father's ancestors were originally Catholic and came to the United States from Koblenz. His mother's family was of mixed Jewish (descended from Spanish and Portuguese Jews) ...
In 1914, Julian Huxley offered Muller a position at the recently founded William Marsh Rice Institute, now Rice University; he hurried to complete his Doctor of philosophy degree and moved to Houston for the beginning of the 1915–1916 academic year (his degree was issued in 1916). At Rice, Muller taught biology and continued Drosophila lab work. In 1918, he proposed an explanation for the dramatic discontinuous alterations in Oenothera larmarckiana that were the basis of Hugo de Vries 's theory of mutationism: "balanced lethals" allowed the accumulation of recessive mutations, and rare crossing over events resulted in the sudden expression of these hidden traits. In other words, de Vries's experiments were explainable by the Mendelian-chromosome theory. Muller's work was increasingly focused on mutation rate and lethal mutations. In 1918, Morgan, short-handed because many of his students and assistants were drafted for the U.S. entry into World War I, convinced Muller to return to Columbia to teach and to expand his experimental program.
A clear, quantitative connection between radiation and lethal mutations quickly emerged. Muller's discovery created a media sensation after he delivered a paper entitled "The Problem of Genetic Modification" at the Fifth International Congress of Genetics in Berlin; it would make him one of the better-known public intellectuals of the early 20th century. By 1928, others had replicated his dramatic results, expanding them to other model organisms, such as wasps and maize. In the following years, he began publicizing the likely dangers of radiation exposure in humans (such as physicians who frequently operate X-ray equipment or shoe sellers who radiated their customers' feet).
The FBI was investigating Muller because of his involvement with The Spark, so he chose instead to go to the Soviet Union (an environment better suited to his political beliefs). In 1933, Muller and his wife reconciled, and their son David E. Muller and she moved with Hermann to Leningrad.
He became interested in the Drosophila genetics work of Thomas Hunt Morgan 's fly lab after undergraduate bottle washers Alfred Sturtevant and Calvin Bridges joined his biology club. In 1911–1912, he studied metabolism at Cornell University, but remained involved with Columbia.
Muller's publication rate decreased greatly in this period, from a combination of lack of lab workers and experimentally challenging projects. However, he also worked as an adviser in the Manhattan Project (though he did not know that was what it was), as well as a study of the mutational effects of radar.
In another group of studies, since carried much further by E. A. Carlson, the interrelations among independently arisen mutations of the same gene were studied intensively, their intra-genic arrangement determined, and principles governing their functional interactions worked out.
Muller married his first wife, formerly Jessie M. Jacobs, in 1923 – they had one son, David Eugene. In 1939 he married Dorothea Kantorowicz – they have one daughter, Helen Juliette. This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel .
H ermann Joseph Muller was born in New York City on December 21, 1890. His grandparents on his father’s side were of artisan and professional background and, though at first Catholics, had emigrated from the Rhineland during the wave of reaction of 1848 to seek the greater freedom of America. His father, born in New York, had continued ...
There he and his classmates Lester Thompson and Edgar Altenburg founded what was perhaps the first high-school science club. Though his family (mother, sister Ada, and himself) had very limited means, they were fortunate in usually being able to spend their summers in the country while he was of school age.