Thomas Hunt Morgan (Thomas Hunt Morgan, 1866~1945), American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist. He discovered the genetic mechanism of chromosomes, founded the theory of chromosome inheritance, and was the founder of modern experimental biology.
Morgan was born in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, and was educated at Kentucky State College. He studied embryology at Johns Hopkins University and received his PhD in 1890.
In dealing with scientific issues, Morgan adheres to the principle of "all through experiments". When Mendel's genetics research was rediscovered in 1900, Morgan expressed doubts. In 1908, Morgan used fruit fly as experimental material to study the mutation phenomenon in biological genetic traits. He often conducted dozens of experiments at the same time, and many experiments failed. But Morgan kept fighting, because he firmly believed that in scientific research, as long as there is a meaningful experiment, all the hard work will be rewarded.
May 1910 was also a gifted opportunity. Morgan accidentally discovered an abnormal white-eyed male fruit fly among the red-eyed fruit flies. He was like a treasure. Under his careful care, this white-eyed fruit fly successfully mated with a red-eyed female fruit fly. Ten days later, the first generation of hybrid flies grew up, all red-eyed flies. Morgan continued to use the first-generation hybrid fruit flies to mate with each other, and obtained the second-generation hybrid fruit flies. As a result, there were 3,470 red-eyed flies and 782 white-eyed ones, basically in line with the ratio of 3:1. The results were completely consistent with the genetic rules summarized by Mendel from his pea experiments.
Morgan once said: "Just like chemists and physicists hypothesized invisible atoms and electrons, geneticists also hypothesized invisible genes. The main thing in common among the three is that physicists, chemists and geneticists all drew different conclusions based on their own data." Through continued in-depth research on the genetic laws of fruit flies, Morgan proposed the third law of genetics of gene linkage and exchange. In 1933, Morgan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his great contribution to the theory of genetic chromosomes.
Morgan turned the gene hypothesis into reality. Genes exist in chromosomes, which opened the door to the next step of discovering DNA and the structure of DNA. Therefore, people generally call Morgan the father of modern genetics. It was he who truly turned genetics into a science.
In order to commemorate Morgan's great contribution to genetics, people call the unit distance between genes in the Drosophila chromosome diagram "Morgan". His name now lives on as a unit of genetic research.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-