Hermann Muller

(1890 - 1967)

Hermann Joseph Muller is a Jewish American scientist who was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Muller was born in New York City and attended Columbia University, earning his B.A. in 1910 and his Ph.D. in 1916. A student of Thomas Hunt Morgan, he taught at Rice Institute in Texas from 1915 until 1918, at Columbia from 1918 until 1920, and at the University of Texas from 1920 until 1932, when he moved to Germany. Muller later moved to Moscow where he became senior geneticist of the Institute of Genetics in Moscow, where he remained until 1937. He then moved to Edinburgh.

In 1945, he became professor of zoology at Indiana University. His method for recognizing spontaneous gene mutation led to his discovery of a technique for artificially inducing mutations by means of X rays that has since had broad theoretical and practical application. For this discovery he was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Muller died on April 5, 1967.

Sources: Wikipedia; Nobel.org