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Biographical Memoirs Volume 91 (2009) / Chapter Skim
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HERMANN JOSEPH MULLER
Pages 188-219

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From page 189...
... , and Bloomington, Indiana (in the Zoology Department at Indiana University) .2 Muller was a controversial critic of society who made an effort to decry abuses of genetics and who served on many national and international committees as an advocate for radiation safety.
From page 190...
... in Germany after the unsuccessful revolution of 1848, which they supported. Three Muller brothers came to the United States that year.
From page 191...
... and first cousin Alfred Kroeber (anthropologist known for his studies of American Indian cultures)
From page 192...
... This surprising evaluation makes more sense to those who know that at the time when Muller was an undergraduate, Morgan was strongly influenced by the ideas and work of Hugo DeVries, one of Mendel's rediscoverers and the proponent of the mutation theory.5 This theory believed new species arose de novo rather than by a gradual Darwinian change over hundreds or thousands of generations. Muller was a committed Darwinian and strongly supported natural selection as the basic mechanism of evolution, a view under academic attack in the early years of the 20th century.
From page 193...
... E P H M U L L E R HERMANN JOS 193 While a sibling rivalry simmered among the three graduate students, and Muller often was shunted to another room (to work with his lifelong friend and fellow high school alumnus, Edgar Altenburg, who was not accepted into Morgan's laboratory) , these budding geneticists engaged in numerous debates and discussions of all their experimental work.6 This makes the source of the ideas for their experiments and interpretations of the experiments difficult, if not impossible, to separate.
From page 194...
... GENETICS AT RICE UNIVERSITY Muller decided to leave Morgan's laboratory after a visit by Julian Huxley, who had been appointed as the founding chair of the Biology Department at the new Rice Institute. Huxley was impressed by the work of the Morgan school, and he asked Morgan to recommend a student; he recom
From page 195...
... On theoretical grounds Muller had argued that Darwinian variation has a genetic basis and there must be subtle modifier genes involved in the different expressions of a genetic trait. Morgan had found two such mutants, one called Truncate and the other called Beaded wings.
From page 196...
... There were also environmental modifiers, especially temperature: the mutant expression enhanced at higher temperatures and the normal phenotype at the lower temperature. Muller considered these experiments of supreme importance for the emerging neoDarwinism, which attempted to bring classical genetics into Darwinian natural selection.
From page 197...
... It increased the stimulation of discussions and approaches to work in classical genetics, but it also led to a renewed
From page 198...
... . Instead Muller designed tools to isolate the most commonly occurring mutations, recessive lethals (first discovered by Morgan)
From page 199...
... One such stock, called ClB, consisted of a recessive lethal, a crossover suppressor, and the dominant visible mutation called Bar eyes, all on the X chromosome. By irradiating normal or wild-type male flies and having the X chromosomes of their sperm individually rendered heterozygous with the ClB chromosome, Muller could test for the presence of an induced recessive lethal mutation by looking for the absence of that category among the progeny (the grandsons of the irradiated male)
From page 200...
... In 1932 Muller's personal life began to collapse over his marriage, his discontent with Texas, the investigations of the FBI, veiled references to him in the local newspapers as a communist subversive on campus, and claims Stadler and others were making that X rays did not induce gene mutations (as changes in the individual gene) but instead induced chromosome rearrangements of various kinds and sizes.
From page 201...
... Muller argued that only in a socialist country, where all children, male and female, white and black, had equal opportunities for education, housing, and other social services, would there be an opportunity for a successful eugenics program. American eugenics, he argued, was based on the false premises that social traits such as pauperism, vagrancy, feeblemindedness, and recidivist crime were largely innate traits.
From page 202...
... V Timofeef-Ressovsky in studies on target theory and the expression of partial dominance by recessive lethals.
From page 203...
... The first event Muller associated with extension of individual or small numbers of genes into chromosomes and genomes in the evolution of life from the first gene, and he modified the cell doctrine with what could be called a gene doctrine, which asserts that all genes arise from preexisting genes. Muller's insight into gene evolution was amply confirmed by the nests of duplicated genes associated with the human hemoglobin A and hemoglobin B genes, each a consequence of extensions by unequal crossing over.
From page 204...
... He also was consultant with Levit for the first medical genetics research laboratory. This was constructed in Moscow and included dozens of identical twins that were studied for their physical traits, susceptibility to tuberculosis and other diseases, behavioral responses to mechanical tasks, and similar studies that attempted to sort genetic from environmental factors.
From page 205...
... Muller realized there was little hope for continued research in the Soviet Union, and Vavilov advised him to find a safe way out. Muller chose to enlist as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War and he joined the International Brigade, serving with the Canadian physician Norman Bethune doing physiological research on blood transfusion.
From page 206...
... Physicians objected that Muller's views were injurious to patient confidence and inappropriate because the work was done on fruit flies and not human patients. It was the beginning of a skirmish on radiation safety that would persist for the rest of Muller's life.
From page 207...
... that dicentric chromosome formation (what McClintock called the breakage-fusion-bridge cycle) was the source of cell death leading to the aborted embryos.
From page 208...
... An Atomic Age required public debate and Muller's prize was seen as a message to him and to science to steer society through potential abuse or calamity. While Muller wore the mantle of elder statesman for science, he was also committed to his graduate program.
From page 209...
... In human populations, he argued, the mutational load increases each generation because the pressure of natural selection is relaxed in an unnatural environment. Muller and his students studied spontaneous mutation rates and used protracted and acute doses under varied physiological conditions (nitrogen- or oxygen-rich atmospheres)
From page 210...
... were too small to be a public health threat. He argued that diagnostic doses were individually low risk, but when given to hundreds of millions of people, did induce a predictable number of leukemias, solid cancers, and mutations.
From page 211...
... . He felt the abuses of Nazi eugenics and the American eugenics movement were historical accidents not likely to be repeated in democratic societies.
From page 212...
... Muller served humanity well in promoting radiation safety and helping to curb the most egregious abuses of radiation in industry and health. Muller's roles in contributing to classical genetics, in founding the field of radiation genetics, and in relating genetics to evolution are solid contributions that will endure.
From page 213...
... ; vice president, International Congress of Radiation Research, Burlington, Vermont (1958) ; Darwin Medal, Linnaean Society, London (1958)
From page 214...
... ; Royal Danish Academy; Royal Society of Edinburgh; Royal Swedish Academy; Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei; National Institutes of Sciences of India; Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur, Mainz; Genetics Society, Japan; Genetical Society; Mendelian Society of Lund; Deutsche Akademie Naturforscher Leopoldina; Japan Academy; Zoological Society, Calcutta; Societa Italiana di Genetica Agraria; Rationalist Press Association; World Academy of Arts and Science (vice president, 1964)
From page 215...
... A Carlson, Mendel's Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004; and J
From page 216...
... The Third International Congress of Eugenics. In Eugenics, Genetics, and the Family 1923 pp.
From page 217...
... The validity of the Bunsen-Roscoe law in the production of mutations by radiation of extremely low intensity. Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Genetics.
From page 218...
... 2:111-176. 1956 On the relation between chromosome changes and gene mutations.


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