Crodowaldo Pavan

Crodowaldo Pavan (born December 1, 1919 in Campinas , † April 3, 2009 in São Paulo ) was a Brazilian biologist and geneticist .

Life

Pavan's ancestors came from Italy and his father had a porcelain factory. He studied biology at the University of São Paulo with André Dreyfus and received his doctorate on the blind cave fish Typhlobagrus kronci . From 1942 he was assistant professor and soon afterwards professor in Sao Paulo. In 1966 he set up a cell genetics laboratory at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and in 1968 he became a professor at the University of Texas at Austin . In 1975 he went back to Brazil to the University of Sao Paulo, where he retired in 1978. He was then a professor at the newly founded state university in his hometown of Campinas, where he was dean of the biology faculty.

He became known for his studies of the genetics, taxonomy and ecology of Drosophila flies, with which he dealt from 1942, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and under the direction of Theodosius Dobzhansky . Among other things, he introduced Rhynchosciara angelae to biological research (a fly with particularly large chromosomes). He was one of the first to prove that the structure of genes and chromosomes can be changed by infection.

He was influential in the development of the natural sciences in Brazil and was President of the National Research Council of Brazil (CNPq) from 1986 to 1990. 1980 to 1986 he was President of the Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência. He was a founding member of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World , a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and several foreign academies and President of the Brazilian Society of Genetics.

In 1986 he became commander of the Rio Branco Order and in 1994 he received the Grand Cross of the Ordem Nacional do Mérito Científico of Brazil.

Web links

• André Luiz Paranhos Perondini: Crodowaldo Pavan ea genética no Brasil, Cienc. Cult. vol. 62 no.spe2 São Paulo 2010, online