George Davis Snell was an American mouse geneticist, basic transplant immunologist and writer.
Background
Mr. Snell was born on December 19, 1903, in Bradford, Massachusetts, United States. He was a son of Cullen Bryant and Katherine Davis Snell. His father worked as a secretary for the local YMCA. He invented a device for winding induction coils for motorboat engines.
Education
George Snell was educated in the Brookline, Massachusetts schools and then enrolled at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire where he continued his passion for mathematics and science, focusing on genetics. He received his Bachelor's degree from Dartmouth in 1926.
On the recommendation of John Gerould, his genetics professor at Dartmouth, Mr. Snell did graduate work at Harvard University with William E. Castle, the first American biologist to look for Mendelian inheritance in mammals. Mr. Snell earned his Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in science at Harvard University in 1928 and 1930 respectively. His doctoral thesis was on genetic linkage in mice.
George Snell spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas with H.J. Muller, who pioneered radiation genetics (and was also to win a Nobel Prize). He studied the genetic effects of x-rays on mice with Muller.
Mr. Snell began his career as an instructor in 1929 at Dartmouth College. Upon receiving the Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University, George Snell was employed as a teacher at Brown University, from 1930 to 1931. Between 1933 and 1934, Mr. Snell was a teacher at Washington University in St. Louis.
After stints at Brown University, the University of Texas, and Washington University, he started a nearly forty-year affiliation at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1935. He retired in 1973, having achieved the rank of senior staff scientist emeritus. After his retirement, he spent much of his time writing on science, philosophy and ethics. He is also known to be the editor and founder of the Immunogenetics journal.
Member of American Philosophical Society, American Academy Arts and Science, Transplantation Society, National Academy of Sciences, British Transplantation Society (honorary), French Academy of Sciences (associate), Phi Beta Kappa.
Interests
gardening
Sport & Clubs
skiing, tennis
Connections
George Davis Snell married Rhoda Carson on July 28, 1937. The couple had three children: Thomas Charleton, Roy Carson, Peter Garland.