Milislav Demerec

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Milislav Demerec (* 11. January 1895 in Kostajnica ; † 12. April 1966 ) was a Croatian - American geneticist .

Live and act

Demerec graduated from the Agricultural School of Križevci in Croatia in 1916 and initially stayed there as a research assistant. After the end of World War I, Demerec emigrated to the United States in 1919 and obtained a Ph.D. in 1923 from RA Emerson in the Plant Breeding Department of Cornell University in Ithaca , New York . in genetics. In 1921 Demerec married Mary Alexander Ziegler, the couple had two daughters.

In 1923 Demerec moved to Charles Davenport at the Department of Genetics at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Cold Spring Harbor , New York. In 1931 he took on the US citizenship. Demerec became associate director in 1936, acting director in 1942 and director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Cold Spring Harbor in 1943. In 1941 he had also become head of the Long Island Biological Association Laboratory, which was also located there . After the two institutions merged to form the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), he remained its director until his retirement in 1960. He brought the later Nobel Prize winners Barbara McClintock and Alfred Hershey to Cold Spring Harbor and organized important scientific symposia and courses to spread the method of gene transduction using phages .

Demerec operated the change in the focus of the CSHL from plant genetics to the genetics of Drosophila , to the research of which he made significant contributions over five decades. Together with Hermann Joseph Muller and Merle Antony Tuve , he researched the mechanisms of mutagenesis , mutator genes (see mutator phenotype ), as well as unstable genes and their influence on the mutation rate . Demerec was one of the founders of the Drosophila Information Service , an informal but important source of information for Drosophila geneticists.

During World War II Demerec turned to studies of Escherichia coli , Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhimurium . He used penicillin , aureomycin and streptomycin to study bacterial mutations and the genetics of antibiotics . Together with Philip E. Hartman (who married a daughter of Demerec) he studied the gene structure and - recombination in Salmonella . From 1947 Demerec was editor of the scientific journal Advances in Genetics .

After reaching the age limit in 1960, Demerec moved to the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Brookhaven , New York, as a group leader. In 1965 Demerec took on a research professorship at the CW Post College of Long Island University , but died before he could take the position.

Awards (selection)

Demerec held honorary doctorates from the following universities: Hofstra College (1957), University of Zagreb (1960), Long Island University (1961). At both the Long Island University CW Post Campus and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory , buildings were named after Demerec's death.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Past & Present Officers of the Genetics Society of America (genetics-gsa.org); Retrieved December 25, 2012
  2. ↑ Milislav Demerec at the American Philosophical Society (amphilsoc.org); Retrieved December 25, 2012
  3. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF, 507 kB) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); Retrieved December 25, 2012
  4. ↑ Kimber Genetics Award at the National Academy of Sciences (nasonline.org); Retrieved December 25, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Demerec, Milislav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yugoslav-American geneticist
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Hrvatska Kostajnica
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1966