Milislav Demerec
Encyclopedia
Milislav Demerec was a Croatian
-American
geneticist
, and the director of the Department of Genetics, Carnegie Institution of Washington [CIW], now Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
(CSHL) from 1941 to 1960, recruiting Barbara McClintock
and Alfred Hershey
.
Demerec was born and raised in Kostajnica
(then Austria-Hungary
, now Croatia
). He attended College of Agriculture in Križevci, graduating in 1916. He worked at Krizevci Experiment Station, and then attended the College of Agriculture in Grignon
, France
after World War I
. He emigrated to the United States for graduate studies in 1919.
In 1919 he started his PhD
at Cornell University
, his work was on maize
genetics
and was supervised by Rollins A. Emerson
. He completed his PhD in 1923 and took up a research position at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's [CIW] Department of Genetics, now Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
. He completed work from his PhD, showing that ten different alleles could cause albinism
in maize
kernels, the at the advice of C. W. Metz he began work on the genetics of the plant Delphinium
and the fruit fly
Drosophila virilis studying mosaicism.
He became a prominent Drosophila
researcher and established the Drosophila Information Service newsletter in 1934 with Calvin Bridges
. In 1936 he was made the assistant directory of the Department of Genetics, and the acting director in 1941 following the retirement of Albert Blakeslee. That year, he was also made director of the Biological Laboratory of the Long Island Biological Association making him the director of both Cold Spring Harbor laboratories, by 1943.
A young Esther M. Zimmer, who worked with Alexander Hollaender
at the U. S. Public Health Service (Bethesda, MD), published with Dr. Hollaender and Demerec in the very early field of x-ray- and UV-induced mutations. Later on, Esther M. Zimmer (now Esther Lederberg
) became one of the most influential founders of bacterial and bacteriophage (Lambda
) genetics.
In the 1940s the direction of Demerec's research changed to the genetics of bacteria
and their viruses
after a symposium given by Max Delbrück
. During World War II
he used his knowledge of bacterial genetics to increase the yield from the Penicillium
. Following the war he continued to work on bacterial genetics and the problem of antibiotic resistance
in E. coli, Salmonella
, and Staphylococcus
. In 1946 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
, and in 1947 became the founding editor of Advances in Genetics, the first journal to review the finding of modern genetics. In the 1950s he served on the genetics panel of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation
. In 1952 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society
.
Following his retirement from CSHL, he took a position at the Brookhaven National Laboratory
, working there until 1965. In 1966 he served briefly as research professor at Long Island University
, until he died on April 12, 1966.
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
geneticist
Geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a researcher or lecturer. Some geneticists perform experiments and analyze data to interpret the inheritance of skills. A geneticist is also a Consultant or...
, and the director of the Department of Genetics, Carnegie Institution of Washington [CIW], now Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. The Laboratory has a broad educational mission, including the recently established Watson School of Biological Sciences. It...
(CSHL) from 1941 to 1960, recruiting Barbara McClintock
Barbara McClintock
Barbara McClintock , the 1983 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, was an American scientist and one of the world's most distinguished cytogeneticists. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927, where she was a leader in the development of maize cytogenetics...
and Alfred Hershey
Alfred Hershey
Alfred Day Hershey was an American Nobel Prize-winning bacteriologist and geneticist.He was born in Owosso, Michigan and received his B.S. in chemistry at Michigan State University in 1930 and his Ph.D. in bacteriology in 1934, taking a position shortly thereafter at the Department of Bacteriology...
.
Demerec was born and raised in Kostajnica
Hrvatska Kostajnica
Hrvatska Kostajnica, often just Kostajnica, is a small town in central Croatia. It is located on the Una river in the Sisak-Moslavina county, south of Petrinja and Sisak and across the river from Bosanska Kostajnica in Bosnia and Herzegovina.-History:...
(then Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, now Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
). He attended College of Agriculture in Križevci, graduating in 1916. He worked at Krizevci Experiment Station, and then attended the College of Agriculture in Grignon
Grignon
Grignon may refer to:* Grignon, Côte-d'Or, commune in France* Grignon, Savoie, commune in France* Thiverval-Grignon, commune in Yvelines département, France* Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon, a French grande école, part of AgroParisTech....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. He emigrated to the United States for graduate studies in 1919.
In 1919 he started his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, his work was on maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
and was supervised by Rollins A. Emerson
Rollins A. Emerson
Rollins Adams Emerson was an American geneticist who rediscovered the laws of inheritance established by Gregor Mendel.Emerson was born on May 5, 1873 in tiny Pillar Point, New York, but at the age of seven his family moved to Nebraska, where he attended public school and the University of Nebraska...
. He completed his PhD in 1923 and took up a research position at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's [CIW] Department of Genetics, now Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. The Laboratory has a broad educational mission, including the recently established Watson School of Biological Sciences. It...
. He completed work from his PhD, showing that ten different alleles could cause albinism
Albinism
Albinism is a congenital disorder characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes due to absence or defect of an enzyme involved in the production of melanin...
in maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
kernels, the at the advice of C. W. Metz he began work on the genetics of the plant Delphinium
Delphinium
Delphinium is a genus of about 300 species of perennial flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native throughout the Northern Hemisphere and also on the high mountains of tropical Africa. The common name, larkspur, is shared with the closely related genus Consolida...
and the fruit fly
Drosophilidae
Drosophilidae is a diverse, cosmopolitan family of flies, which includes fruit flies. Another family of flies called Tephritidae also includes fruit flies. The best known species of Drosophilidae is Drosophila melanogaster, within the genus Drosophila, and this species Is used extensively for...
Drosophila virilis studying mosaicism.
He became a prominent Drosophila
Drosophila melanogaster
Drosophila melanogaster is a species of Diptera, or the order of flies, in the family Drosophilidae. The species is known generally as the common fruit fly or vinegar fly. Starting from Charles W...
researcher and established the Drosophila Information Service newsletter in 1934 with Calvin Bridges
Calvin Bridges
Calvin Blackman Bridges was an American scientist, known for his contributions to the field of genetics. Along with Alfred Sturtevant and H.J. Muller, Bridges was part of the famous fly room of Thomas Hunt Morgan at Columbia University.Bridges wrote a masterful Ph.D...
. In 1936 he was made the assistant directory of the Department of Genetics, and the acting director in 1941 following the retirement of Albert Blakeslee. That year, he was also made director of the Biological Laboratory of the Long Island Biological Association making him the director of both Cold Spring Harbor laboratories, by 1943.
A young Esther M. Zimmer, who worked with Alexander Hollaender
Alexander Hollaender
Alexander Hollaender was one of the world's leading researchers in radiation biology and in genetic mutations. In 1983 he was given the Enrico Fermi Award by the United States Department of Energy for his contributions in founding the science of radiation biology, and for his leadership in...
at the U. S. Public Health Service (Bethesda, MD), published with Dr. Hollaender and Demerec in the very early field of x-ray- and UV-induced mutations. Later on, Esther M. Zimmer (now Esther Lederberg
Esther Lederberg
Esther Miriam Zimmer Lederberg was an American microbiologist and immunologist and pioneer of bacterial genetics...
) became one of the most influential founders of bacterial and bacteriophage (Lambda
Lambda
Lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is related to the Phoenician letter Lamed . Letters in other alphabets that stemmed from lambda include the Roman L and the Cyrillic letter El...
) genetics.
In the 1940s the direction of Demerec's research changed to the genetics of bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
and their viruses
Bacteriophage
A bacteriophage is any one of a number of viruses that infect bacteria. They do this by injecting genetic material, which they carry enclosed in an outer protein capsid...
after a symposium given by Max Delbrück
Max Delbrück
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Delbrück was born in Berlin, German Empire...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he used his knowledge of bacterial genetics to increase the yield from the Penicillium
Penicillium
Penicillium is a genus of ascomycetous fungi of major importance in the natural environment as well as food and drug production. Members of the genus produce penicillin, a molecule that is used as an antibiotic, which kills or stops the growth of certain kinds of bacteria inside the body...
. Following the war he continued to work on bacterial genetics and the problem of antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance is a type of drug resistance where a microorganism is able to survive exposure to an antibiotic. While a spontaneous or induced genetic mutation in bacteria may confer resistance to antimicrobial drugs, genes that confer resistance can be transferred between bacteria in a...
in E. coli, Salmonella
Salmonella
Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...
, and Staphylococcus
Staphylococcus
Staphylococcus is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria. Under the microscope they appear round , and form in grape-like clusters....
. In 1946 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, and in 1947 became the founding editor of Advances in Genetics, the first journal to review the finding of modern genetics. In the 1950s he served on the genetics panel of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
. In 1952 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
.
Following his retirement from CSHL, he took a position at the Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...
, working there until 1965. In 1966 he served briefly as research professor at Long Island University
Long Island University
Long Island University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution of higher education in the U.S. state of New York.-History:...
, until he died on April 12, 1966.
External References
- Comfort N. C. Demerec, Milislav. American National Biography Online Feb. 2000
- Milislav Demerec Biography, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Kass, L. B. and Chomet, P. 2009. Barbara McClintock, Pgs. 17-52, in J. Bennetzen and S. Hake, Editors, Handbook of Maize: Genetics and Genomics. Springer.
- Kass, Lee B. 2005b. Missouri compromise: tenure or freedom. New evidence clarifies why Barbara McClintock left Academe. Maize Genetics Cooperation Newsletter 79: 52-71. Available, online, April 2005: http://www.agron.missouri.edu/mnl/79/05kass.htm
- Hollaender, A., Sansome E. R., Zimmer, E., Demerec, M., April 1945, "Quantitative Irradiation Experiments with Neurospora crassa. II. Ultraviolet Irradiation", American Journal of Botany 32(4):226-235; see http://www.estherlederberg.com/Papers.html