MORGAN, THOMAS HUNT. - American biologist, b. at Lexington on 25 Sept. 1866, d. at Pasadena on 4 Dec. 1945. He graduated in natural sciences in 1890 from Johns Hopkins University. He was professor of biology at Bryn Mawr College (1894) and then of zoology at Columbia University (1904), and finally at the Institutes of Pasadena (1928). He received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1933.
M.'s work ranged over the most varied branches of the biological sciences. He began his studies as an experimental embryologist (polarity of the egg in amphibians and echinoderms, potencies of the blastomeres, merogony, etc.), then studied experimental regeneration in various animal groups (protozoa, coelenterates, planarians and annelids), on which he formulated the theory of organic polarity (1902). His major researches are due to the study of the vinegar fly (Drosophila), in which he brought to light the close connection between heredity and chromosomes, founding modern genetics. He had numerous pupils and collaborators of worth (Bridge, Sturtevant, Müller, Stern, etc.). He published an enormous quantity of papers and works, among which should be remembered: The regeneration (New York 1901); Heredity and sex (ibid. 1913); The physical basis of heredity (Philadelphia 1919); Evolution and genetics (Princeton 1925); The theory of the gene (New Haven 1926); Experimental embryology (New York 1927); The scientific basis of evolution (ibid. 1932); Embryology and genetics (ibid. 1934).
Giorgio M. Baffoni