American Philosophical Society
Member History

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Residency
Resident[X]
Class
Subdivision
202. Cellular and Developmental Biology[X]
1Name:  Dr. Günter Blobel
 Institution:  Howard Hughes Medical Institute & Rockefeller University
 Year Elected:  1989
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1936
 Death Date:  February 18, 2018
   
 
German-born cell biologist Günter Blobel was known for communicating difficult concepts in a clear and interesting way. He contributed pioneering work that shed light on diseases such as cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's and AIDS and provided the basis for bioengineered drugs such as insulin. In 1999 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery that proteins have signals that govern their movement and position in the cell. Each protein, he found, has its own "zip code" that determines whether the protein is transported across or integrated into a specific cellular membrane. Dr. Blobel received his medical degree from the University of Tübingen in Germany in 1960, earned a doctorate in oncology from the University of Wisconsin in 1967 and became a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University protein laboratory, where he had been a professor since 1976. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Society for Cell Biology, he had also been an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1986. Dr. Blobel died on February 18, 2018, at the age of 81 in New York City.
 
2Name:  Dr. Joseph Grafton Gall
 Institution:  Carnegie Institution of Washington
 Year Elected:  1989
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1928
   
 
Joseph Gall is an outstanding cytogeneticist known for his research on the organization and structure of genes along animal chromosomes and for developing methods for detecting individual genes on chromosomes. He is a co-discoverer of gene amplification, which was later found to be an important concomitant of some cancers. Dr. Gall received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1952 and has taught at the University of Minnesota and at Yale University, where he was Ross Granville Harrison Professor of Biology and Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Chemistry from 1964-83. He has been a staff member in the department of embryology at the Carnegie Institute of Washington since 1983 and American Cancer Society Professor of Developmental Genetics since 1984. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and was awarded the American Society for Cell Biology's E.B. Wilson Medal in 1983. A scholar of the history and use of microscopes and a collector of scientific books, especially those relating to cytology, Dr. Gall is a true naturalist with an encyclopedic knowledge and curiosity about living things.
 
Election Year
1989[X]