Background
Ris, Hans was born on June 15, 1914 in Bern, Switzerland. Son of August and Martha (Egger) Ris. came to the United States, 1938, naturalized, 1945.
Ris, Hans was born on June 15, 1914 in Bern, Switzerland. Son of August and Martha (Egger) Ris. came to the United States, 1938, naturalized, 1945.
University of Bern, Switzerland, Rochester and New York and Columbia and Yale Universities.
His studies of chromosome structure revealed the importance of non-histone proteins. He was one of the first to recognize that blue-green algae were a special type of bacteria. He coined the term genophore for prokaryote deoxyribonucleic acid to highlight its differences from the eukaryal chromosome.
Inspired by the works of the French entomologist Jean Henri Fabre, he observed the habits of ants, wasps and bees.
He came to America in 1938 to work with B.H. Willier at Rochester, New New York After receiving his Doctor of Philosophy at Columbia University he moved to Johns Hopkins and later to the laboratory of Alfred Mirsky at Rockefeller University, where he studied the structure of chromosomes.
He then went to the zoology department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1949, where he started to work with electron microscopes. In 1972 he established the HVEM laboratory at Madison.
He retired at age 75 but remained Emeritus Investigator of the University of Wisconsin’s Integrated Microscopy Resource Center (IMRC) and continued to work on high-resolution images of the nuclear pore complex which he used to nickname "fish trap".
The Integrated Microscopy Resource Center of the University of Wisconsin organizes a symposium in his honour starting in 2012. As of September 2014, preparations were underway to hold it again in October 2014.
Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member National Academy of Sciences, Electron Microscopy Society of America (Distinguished Investigator award 1983), American Society for Cell Biology (E.B. Wilson award 1993).
Married Hania Wislicka, December 26, 1947 (divorced 1971). Children: Christopher Robert, Annette Margo. Married Theron Caldwell, July 14, 1980.