Liane B. Russell

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Fred Thompson (left) with Liane B. Russell 1996

Liane Brauch "Lee" Russell (born August 27, 1923 in Vienna ; † July 20, 2019 ) was an American geneticist .

Career

Russell came from a well-to-do Jewish family in Vienna (her father was a chemist) and was able to emigrate with her family to England after the annexation of Austria in 1938. She came to the United States in 1941 and became a US citizen in 1946. She studied at Hunter College in New York City and received her PhD in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1945 . She married the geneticist William L. Russell , with whom she had two children. From 1943 she did research at the Jackson Memorial Laboratory and from 1947 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory , where her husband William Russell set up a laboratory for the study of the effects of radiation on the genetic material of mammals (mice). Liane Russell herself researched mainly in the field of radiation-induced mutations in mammals (for example, periods when mouse embryos are particularly sensitive to radiation), and later also on chemicals. She became a senior fellow of the laboratory, headed the Mammalian Genetics and Development department from 1975 to 1995, and retired in 2002.

In 1961 she proposed, simultaneously with and independently of Mary Frances Lyon , that only one X chromosome (of the two present) is active in female mammals.

She was also a conservation activist, and in 1966 she helped found the Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning organization, which, after years of lobbying, achieved protection status for the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area in 1976 .

In 1993 she received the Enrico Fermi Prize . In 1986 she became a member of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1973 she received the X-ray plaque with William Russell .

Web links

Commons : Liane B. Russell  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Liane B. Russell remembered for her research, advocacy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, July 23, 2019, accessed July 24, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Russell, Liane B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Russell, Liane Brauch (full name); Russell, Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geneticist
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 20th July 2019