Edward B. Lewis

Edward B. Lewis

Edward B. Lewis
Born May 20, 1918
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Died July 21, 2004 (aged 86)
Pasadena, California
Nationality American
Fields Genetics
Developmental Biology
Embryology[1]
Alma mater University of Minnesota (B.A., 1939)
California Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1942)
California Institute of Technology (M.S., 1943)
Doctoral advisor Alfred Sturtevant
Known for Research into genetics of the common fruit fly
Notable awards Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal (1983)
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (1992)
Nobel Prize in Medicine (1995)

Edward B. Lewis (May 20, 1918 – July 21, 2004) was an American geneticist, a corecipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Life and career

Lewis was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the second son of Laura Mary Lewis (née Histed) and Edward Butts Lewis, a watchmaker-jeweler. His full name was supposed to be Edward Butts Lewis Jr., but the parents forgot to fill out his birth certificate.[2]

Lewis graduated from E. L. Meyers High School. He received a BA in Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota in 1939, where he worked on Drosophila melanogaster in the lab of C.P. Oliver. In 1942 Lewis received a Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working under the guidance of Alfred Sturtevant. After serving as a meteorologist in the U.S. Air Force in World War II, Lewis joined the Caltech faculty in 1946 as an instructor. In 1956 he was appointed Professor of Biology, and in 1966 the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology.

Among his many awards were the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal (1983), the Gairdner Foundation International award (1987), the Wolf Foundation prize in medicine (1989), the Rosenstiel award (1990), the National Medal of Science (1990), the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1991), and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize of Columbia University (1992).

His Nobel Prize–winning studies with Drosophila, (including the discovery of the Drosophila Bithorax complex and elucidation of its function), founded the field of developmental genetics and laid the groundwork for our current understanding of the universal, evolutionarily conserved strategies controlling animal development. He is credited with development of the complementation test. His key publications in the fields of genetics, developmental biology, radiation and cancer are presented in the book Genes, Development and Cancer, which was released in 2004.

Effects of radiation

During the 1950s, Dr. Lewis studied the effects of radiation from X-rays, nuclear fallout and other sources as possible causes of cancer. He reviewed medical records from survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as radiologists and patients exposed to X-rays. Lewis concluded that "health risks from radiation had been underestimated". Dr. Lewis published articles in Science and other journals and made a presentation to a Congressional committee on atomic energy in 1957.[3]

At the scientific level of the debate, the crucial question was whether the "threshold theory" was valid or whether, as Lewis insisted, the effects of radioactivity were "linear with no threshold", where every exposure to radiation had a long-term cumulative effect.[4]

The issue of linearity versus threshold re-entered the debate on nuclear fallout in 1962, when Ernest Sternglass, a Pittsburgh physicist, argued that the linearity thesis was confirmed by the research of Alice Stewart.[5] (See also John Gofman )

Interviews

On November 20, 2001 Dr. Lewis was interviewed by Dr. Elliot Meyerowitz in the Kerckhoff Library at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. This interview was released on DVD in 2004 as "Conversations in Genetics: Volume 1, No. 3 - Edward B. Lewis; An Oral History of Our Intellectual Heritage in Genetics" 67 min; Producer Rochelle Easton Esposito; The Genetics Society of America.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1995/lewis-facts.html
  2. ↑ http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/1500213.pdf
  3. ↑ Edward Lewis, Nobelist Who Studied Fly DNA, Dies at 86
  4. ↑ Gerald H. Clarfield and William M. Wiecek (1984). Nuclear America: Military and Civilian Nuclear Power in the United States 1940-1980, Harper & Row, New York, p. 225.
  5. ↑ Gerald H. Clarfield and William M. Wiecek (1984). Nuclear America: Military and Civilian Nuclear Power in the United States 1940-1980, Harper & Row, New York, p. 228.

Further reading

External links