“Berlin Memorial Plaque” for American Geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller
The
memorial plaque bears the following inscription: “In this building from
November 1932 until September 1933, the biologist and geneticist Hermann Joseph
Muller (December 21, 1890 – April 5, 1967) explored fundamental questions of
genetics while he was visiting scientist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Brain Research. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.”
Science historian Professor Hans-Jörg Rheinberger held the dedication ceremony
address, lauding Hermann Joseph Muller as “one of the great pioneers of
genetics in the twentieth century”. In her remarks at the ceremony, Professor
Emerita Helen Juliette Muller recalled memories of her father. Muller’s son,
the mathematician David Eugene Muller, who as a child was with his parents at
that time in Berlin,
did not live to experience the unveiling of the memorial plaque for his father.
He died of a grave illness a few weeks before the dedication ceremony.
Muller was
one of the first to recognize genes as the foundation of life. He was the first
scientist to produce mutations in genes in experiments. Moreover, his studies
on x-ray-induced genetic alterations advanced quantitative thinking in biology.
He was also indefatigable in warning against the perils of ionizing radiation,
particularly in the form of nuclear weapons.
Hermann
Joseph Muller was born on December 21, 1890 in New York
City and studied biology there at ColumbiaUniversity
from 1907 to 1910. After completing his master’s degree in 1911, he held a
teaching fellowship at CornellMedicalCollege
in Ithaca, New York. In 1915 he received his PhD from ColumbiaUniversity under the supervision of the
geneticist and later Nobel Prize laureate Thomas H. Morgan. Together with
Morgan and two other scientists, Muller published normal'>The Mechanisms of Mendelian Heredity, a book which was to have
great influence on research.
In the
following years Muller was a member of the faculty at various universities and
in 1925 received a professorship at the University
of Texas in Austin. In 1922, during a lecture tour in the
USSR, he gave a specially
cultured collection of Drosophila stocks
to the Russian scientist Nikolai K. Koltsov (Moscow),
thus laying the cornerstone for the development of normal'>Drosophila genetics in the Soviet Union.
Shortly thereafter, Nikolai Timoféeff-Ressovsky began work with these stocks. A
few years later, on Koltsov’s recommendation, he was invited by Oskar Vogt in
1925 to come to work in Berlin, and he
continued this research in Berlin
until the end of the war in 1945.
Nobel Prize for induction of mutations by means
of x-rays
In 1926-1927
Muller discovered that x-rays can induce genetic mutations, and he published
his findings in the American journal Science.
In 1946, almost 20 years later, he received the Nobel Prize for this research,
but his findings had already attracted much attention shortly after
publication. Muller held the plenary lecture at the 5th International Congress of
Genetics in Berlin
in 1927. The same year Muller also became acquainted with Nikolai Timoféeff-Ressovsky
in Berlin. In
order to collaborate with him, Muller came to Berlin again as Guggenheim Fellow in 1932-1933
at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin-Buch. As Professor
Rheinberger elaborated in his dedicatory address, “His [Muller’s] last action
on his way to Europe was to deliver a paper at the Third International Congress
of Eugenics in New York,
also in August 1932, with the telling title ‘The dominance of economics over
eugenics’. It was essentially a break from his former support of eugenics as it
was propagated in the United
States and elsewhere in the world at that
time.” During this stay Muller also went to Copenhagen and there became acquainted with
Niels Bohr (1885-1962) as well as with the young Max Delbrück. In the following years the four scientists met
several times (1936 – 1938) at conferences in Denmark
and Belgium.
Due to political
developments in Germany,
Muller broke off his stay in Berlin
prematurely. In March 1933 SA units stormed the Institute and arrested several
people – including Muller, who was only released after Gustav Krupp von Bohlen
and Halbach intervened. Muller left Germany
on September 16, 1933 and went to the Soviet Union,
although friends had warned him against doing so. He remained in Leningrad and Moscow
until 1937. In 1933 he was named corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences
of the USSR,
but resigned in 1948 out of protest to Lysenko, Stalin’s chief biologist. In
1937 he first went to Scotland,
returning from there in 1940 to the U.S. Until 1945 he was a faculty
member at AmherstCollege in Massachusetts,
after that professor at IndianaUniversity in Bloomington.
Muller died at the age of 76 on April 5, 1967 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
“Genetiker in
Berlin-Buch/Geneticists in Berlin-Buch”
The
significance of Hermann Joseph Muller, Nikolai Timoféeff-Ressovsky and Max
Delbrück for the development of genetics and molecular biology is the subject
of the book published by the MDC “Genetiker in Berlin-Buch/Geneticists in
Berlin-Buch”. The life histories of the three scientists clearly reflect the
upheavals of the 20th century. The authors are Professor Volker
Wunderlich (MDC), who describes Muller as “perhaps the most influential
geneticist in the first five decades of the past century” and “an intellectual
forerunner of molecular biology”. Professor Fritz Melchers of the Max Planck
Institute for Infection Biology and Professor Jens Reich (MDC) have written
tributes to the legacy of Max Delbrück (1906 – 1981). Their contributions are
based on lectures they held in Berlin
in 2006 on the occasion of the centenary celebration of Max Delbrück, the name
patron of the MDC. The essay by Professor Manfred Rajewsky (University of Essen)
illuminates the life and work of Timoféeff-Ressovsky (1900 – 1981).
"Berlin Memorial Plaque" Unveiled - Professor Walter Birchmeier (MDC), Professor Helen Juliette Muller, Albuquergue, New Mexico, USA, daughter of Hermann Joseph Muller , and Professor Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, (Photo: David Ausserhofer/Copyright: MDC)
"Berlin Memorial Plaque" for the American Geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller (Photo: David Ausserhofer/Copyright: MDC)
Barbara
Bachtler
Press
and Public Affairs
MaxDelbrück
Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)
Berlin-Buch
Robert-Rössle-Str.
10; 13125 Berlin, Germany
Phone:
+49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96
Fax: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33
e-mail:
presse@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/en/news
