Background
George Beadle was born on October 22, 1903 in Wahoo, Nebraska, United States, in the family of Chauncey Elmer and Hattie Albro Beadle.
George Wells Beadle
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1957
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1966
George Beadle was born on October 22, 1903 in Wahoo, Nebraska, United States, in the family of Chauncey Elmer and Hattie Albro Beadle.
George was educated at the Wahoo High School. In 1926 he took his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Nebraska. In 1927 he took his Master of Science degree. For his work on Mendelian asynapsis in Zea mays he obtained, in 1931, his Doctor of Philosophy degree.
George took a post as Teaching Assistant at Cornell University, where he worked, until 1931. In 1931 he was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena, where he remained from 1931 until 1936. During this period he continued his work on Indian corn and began to work on crossing-over in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
In 1935 Beadle visited Paris for six months to work with Professor Boris Ephrussi at the Institut de Biologie physico-chimique. Together they began the study of the development of eye pigment in Drosophila which later led to the work on the biochemistry of the genetics of the fungus Neurospora.
In 1936 Beadle left the California Institute of Technology to become Assistant Professor of Genetics at Harvard University. A year later he was appointed Professor of Biology at Stanford University and there he remained for nine years. In 1946 he returned to the California Institute of Technology as Professor of Biology and Chairman of the Division of Biology. Here he remained until January 1961 when he was elected Chancellor of the University of Chicago and, in the autumn of the same year, President of this University.
George Wells Beadle helped found biochemical genetics when he showed that genes affect heredity by determining enzyme structure.
George Wells Beadle shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Edward Tatum and Joshua Lederberg. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Beadle received numerous other awards. The George W. Beadle Award of the Genetics Society of America is named in his honor. George Beadle Middle School in Millard, Nebraska (Part of the Millard Public Schools district) was named after him. It opened in 2001. The Beadle Center, which houses the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is also named after George Beadle.
FarmHouse Fraternity
Chairman of Committee on Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation
National Academy of Sciences
President
Genetics Society of America
1946
President
American Association for the Advancement of Science
1955
Chairman of Scientific Advisory Council
American Cancer Society
Royal Society of London
Danish Royal Academy of Science
gardening
rockclimbing, skiing
Beadle was married twice. By his first wife, Marion Cecile Hill, he had a son, David, who now lives at The Hague, the Netherlands. His second wife, Muriel McClure, a well-known writer, was born in California. They married on August 12, 1953. He had a stepson Redmond James Barnett.
