Mц?LLER (Muller), Herman J.

December 21, 1890, Mr.. - April 5, 1967
American biologist and geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller was born in New York and was the youngest in a family of two children. His father (and namesake), a native of German Catholics, was preparing to become a lawyer, but was forced to take over the family foundry. His mother, nee Frances Louise Lyons, was the daughter of English Sephardic. Although her father M. died when the boy was only nine years old, he managed to convey to him his passion for science. Herman and his older sister attended comprehensive school in Harlem, and in 1907. He graduated from high school in the Bronx Morris. As an ordinary student, M. obtained scholarships at Columbia University, a leading center of genetic research. There, as in high school, M. organized a student biology club. After graduating with honors from the university in 1910, he received the title of Master of Science in Physiology in the next year by writing a work on the transmission of nerve impulses.
After graduating from the University of M. received a scholarship and studied experimental psychology in the medical college at Cornell University in New York. He maintained contact with two young friends from Columbia Biological Club, . Alfred Stertevanom and Calvin Bridges, . who studied the chromosome inheritance in the fruit fly Drosophila in the laboratory of zoology and genetics by Thomas Hunt Morgan in Columbia,
. M. joined the group in 1912, when he became a lecturer at the Department of Zoology.
. Analysis of the transfer of modified genetic traits (mutations) in fruit flies showed that the genes are combined in groups, can be separated and subjected to recombination in accordance with the genetic theory of Gregor Mendel
. In his doctoral dissertation M. in 1916. indisputably proved that the four groups of related genes discovered by special genetic research, correspond to the four chromosomes in the nuclei of Drosophila. This fact has convinced previously doubting Morgan, that the Mendelian genes were not just skilled theoretical character, but actually existing units, located in the chromosomes. Results of scientific research groups were published in a book called 'The Mechanism of Mendelian inheritance' ( 'The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity', . 1915); in this paper discussed the principles of 'classical' genetics, . existed prior to the biochemical studies,
. Feeling that many of his performances, especially theoretical, not recognized at Columbia University, M. accepted the offer of cooperation by Julian Huxley of the Institute of Raissa in Houston and in 1915. moved to Texas. He later returned for two years (1918 ... 1920) at Columbia University before becoming professor of zoology at Austin University in Texas.
In 1923, Mr.. M. Zhessi married Mary Jacob, a teacher of mathematics at the university, co-author of some of its publications, they had one son.
Interest in M. genetics support the theory of Charles Darwin's natural selection, according to which new genetic changes (or mutations) occur constantly and randomly in the populations of living organisms. According to this view, because the changes are minor, evolution is gradual steps rather than big leaps.
Expecting that the majority of spontaneous mutations should be unfavorable for the survival of species, M. derived species of Drosophila, in which the chromosomes to identify were marked with distinguishing harmless genetic variations. Marked chromosome, which is harmful mutation, theoretically should disappear from the genetic lines, and subsequently the frequency of such disappearance must be a measure of the rate of mutation. In 1920, Mr.. M. and his colleague Edgar Altenburg of Columbia University conducted the first measurements of mutation rates.
While working at the Institute of Raisa M. found that most mutations are harmful or fatal. He then showed that the rate of mutations is not dependent on environmental factors and that mutations occur at a constant speed, regardless of the need for them. M. suggested that environmental factors.
such as X-rays (discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895), may have genetic effect. Normally, genes are very stable, and should affect very high energy, such as when X-ray irradiation to damage them. Since X-rays affect the individual molecules, they can damage and the individual genes, without affecting other. In 1926, Mr.. M. found that the rays actually increases the rate of mutations in he had received a bulleted form of hundreds and thousands of times compared to the norm.
. The discovery, according to which heredity and evolution may be intentionally modified in vitro, caused a sensation
. After reports of his research in the journal 'Sains' ( 'Science') in 1927. M. suddenly became famous and respected, but as a result of fatigue, increasing financial difficulties caused by the crisis of 1929 ... 1930., he attempted suicide in early 1932. After leaving the state of depression, he returned to Germany, received the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and spent a year in the Department of Genetics, headed by NV. Timofeev-Resovskii, Institute for Brain Research in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm. He then accepted an invitation from NI. Vavilov, director of the Institute of Plant Academy of Sciences, came to Leningrad as a leading genetics for studies of gene mutations. In 1935. He annulled the marriage with Zhessi Jacob.
M. left the USSR in 1939, to take part in the Spanish Civil War. Next three years he spent at the Institute of Animal Genetics at Edinburgh University (Scotland), where he met Dorothea Johann Kantorovich, a German emigrant. They married in 1939, had a daughter.
Returning in 1940. in the United States, M. temporarily held the post of professor of biology at Amherst College (Massachusetts). In 1943, Mr.. as a consultant took part in the development of the Manhattan Project, and at the end of the war - in the Atomic Energy Commission, USA, in 1945. became a professor of zoology at Indiana University in Bloomington.
In 1946, Mr.. M. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discovery of the mutation under the influence of X-rays'. In his Nobel lecture 'The emergence of mutations' ( 'The Production of Mutations') M. The experimental work, which with the advent of atomic weapons is a new and terrible significance. 'With increasing use of nuclear energy, . even for peaceful purposes, . - He said, . - The problem of security becomes very important, . as the human embryonic material should be reliably protected from the additional and powerful source of constant pollution ',
. Among those who, based on studies of MS, has urged the need to ban nuclear tests, was Linus K. Pauling.
In his last years M. made considerable efforts to change the teaching of biology in high school and the development of eugenic program, . called 'selection of conception', . according to which the outstanding male sperm to be frozen for future use at conception and a healthy future generation intelligent,
. He outlined his views on these issues in his book 'Out of the night: a view of the biologist for the future' ( 'Out of the Night: A Biologist's View of the Future', 1935). Being engaged in genetic research, Moscow, in addition, conducted the first psychological analysis of behavior of identical twins reared in different families.
M. attracted different kinds of sports, showed great Interso to world politics and travel, loved literature. In the mid 60-ies. He developed heart disease with symptoms of heart failure, and in 1967
He died in Bloomington at the age of seventy-seven years.
Numerous awards M. included the Kimber Genetics Award of the National Academy of Sciences (1955) and the Alexander Hamilton Award, Columbia University (1960). He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, . member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, . Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, . American Society of Zoologists, . American Society of Genetics, . Genetics Society of Great Britain and the American Philosophical Society, . and foreign member of the Royal Society of London.,