Scientist. A geneticist and Nobel Prize winner (Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1995)) for discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development, he was orn in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, received a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1938 and a Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in 1942. A meteorologist in the United States Army Air Force during World War II, he subsequently joined the Caltech faculty as an instructor in 1946; appointed Professor of Biology in 1956; in 1966 became the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology. His Nobel Prize winning studies established the field of developmental genetics and became the groundwork for understanding of the universal, evolutionarily conserved strategies controlling animal development. Lewis was a former president of the Genetics Society of America, which awarded him its Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, named for a 1933 Nobel laureate who also studied fruit flies. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He retired in 1988; in 1989 was named a fellow of the Royal Society in England; awarded the National Medal of Science in 1990. Major publications in the fields of genetics, developmental biology, radiation and cancer are presented in the book “Genes, Development and Cancer”, published in 2004. He died of prostate cancer in Pasadena, California.
Scientist. A geneticist and Nobel Prize winner (Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1995)) for discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development, he was orn in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, received a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1938 and a Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in 1942. A meteorologist in the United States Army Air Force during World War II, he subsequently joined the Caltech faculty as an instructor in 1946; appointed Professor of Biology in 1956; in 1966 became the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology. His Nobel Prize winning studies established the field of developmental genetics and became the groundwork for understanding of the universal, evolutionarily conserved strategies controlling animal development. Lewis was a former president of the Genetics Society of America, which awarded him its Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, named for a 1933 Nobel laureate who also studied fruit flies. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He retired in 1988; in 1989 was named a fellow of the Royal Society in England; awarded the National Medal of Science in 1990. Major publications in the fields of genetics, developmental biology, radiation and cancer are presented in the book “Genes, Development and Cancer”, published in 2004. He died of prostate cancer in Pasadena, California.
Bio by: Fred Beisser
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