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George Wells Beadle (October
22,
1903 –
June 9,
1989) was an
American
scientist in the field of
genetics. He shared half of
the
1958
Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine with
Edward Lawrie Tatum for their
discovery that
genes act by regulating
biochemical events within the
cell. The other half of that
year's award went to
Joshua Lederberg.
Beadle and Tatum's key
experiments involved exposing the
bread
mold
Neurospora crassa to
x-rays, causing
mutations. In a series of
experiments, they showed that
these mutations caused changes in
specific
enzymes involved in
metabolic pathways. These
experiments led them to propose a
direct link between genes and
enzymatic reactions, known as the
"one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis.
Beadle was born in
Wahoo, Nebraska. He received
his Bachelor of Science degree
from the
University of Nebraska in
1928. He received his
Ph.D. from
Cornell University in
1931. Beadle worked with
1933 Nobel Prize winner
Thomas Hunt Morgan at the
California Institute of Technology.
He was a professor at
Harvard University and
Caltech. He also served as
president of the
University of Chicago from
1961-1968. He published his book
The Language of Life in
1966.
References
- Nobel Lectures,
Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962,
Elsevier Publishing Company,
Amsterdam, 1964
