Class
| • | 2. Biological Sciences | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Prof. Erwin Bünning | | | Institution: | University of Tübingen | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 202. Cellular and Developmental Biology | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1906 | | | Death Date: | 10/4/1990 | | | | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Gerald M. Edelman | | | Institution: | The Scripps Research Institute; The Neurosciences Institute | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1929 | | | Death Date: | May 17, 2014 | | | | | | |
Biologist Gerald Maurice Edelman won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 for his work on the immune system and his discovery of the structure of antibody molecules. He was a professor of neurobiology at The Scripps Research Institute and the founder and director of The Neurosciences Institute, a nonprofit research center that studies the biological basis of higher brain function in humans. Dr. Edelman is noted for his theory of mind, which he elucidated in a trilogy of technical books, and in briefer form for a more general audience in his books Bright Air, Brilliant Fire (1992) and Wider than the Sky : The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness (2004). Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge (2006) offered reflections on how an understanding of the human brain and the phenomenon of consciousness might impact the nature of human knowledge itself. His other works include Topobiology (1988), which contains a theory of how the original neuronal network of a newborn's brain is established during development of the embryo, and Neural Darwinism (1987), which proposes a theory of memory built around the idea of plasticity in the neural network in response to the environment. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Dr. Edelman holds an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from Rockefeller University, where he had been a member of the faculty prior to joining the Scripps Institute. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1977. Dr. Edelman died on May 17, 2014, at the age of 84. | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Richard D. Keynes | | | Institution: | University of Cambridge | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 206. Physiology, Biophysics, and Pharmacology | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1919 | | | Death Date: | June 12, 2010 | | | | | | |
Richard Darwin Keynes' scientific career has been devoted mainly to research on the physiology, biophysics, and molecular biology of nerve conduction. In 1951 he was invited to work in Rio de Janeiro, where he helped to show, for the first time, how the electric eel generates its additive discharge, and where he acquired a strong interest in South America. This interest would have important consequences for him. In 1968 a chance discovery in Buenos Aires of a collection of drawings made aboard the Beagle by artist Conrad Martens set him to work on the history of Charles Darwin's voyage with Captain Robert FitzRoy to South America and back around the world via the Galapagos Islands. This led Dr. Keynes first to write The Beagle Record, then to produce a new edition of Darwin's classical account of his travels entitled The Beagle Diary, and most recently to transcribe Charles Darwin's Zoology Notes & Specimen Lists from H.M.S. Beagle, which was published for the first time in 2000. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Dr. Keynes was Professor Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1959 and to the American Philosophical Society in 1977. Dr. Keynes died on June 12, 2010, at the age of 90. | |
| 4 | Name: | Dr. Keith R. Porter | | | Institution: | University of Pennsylvania | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 202. Cellular and Developmental Biology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1912 | | | Death Date: | 5/2/97 | | | | |
| 5 | Name: | Dr. Eliot Stellar | | | Institution: | University of Pennsylvania | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 210. Behavioral Biology, Psychology, Ethology, and Animal Behavior | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1919 | | | Death Date: | 10/12/93 | | | | |
| 6 | Name: | Dr. James D. Watson | | | Institution: | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 207. Genetics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1928 | | | | | | |
James Watson earned a Ph.D. in zoology at the University of Indiana in 1950. He completed his postgraduate work at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, and in the process, working with Francis Crick discovered the double helical structure of DNA using X-ray diffraction methods originally implemented by physicist Maurice Wilkins. For this monumental discovery the three men were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962. Watson was a member of the faculty at Harvard University from 1955-76. He became the director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1968 and served as its president, then chancellor from 1994 to 2007. He was associate director at the National Center for Human Genome Research of the NIH from 1988-89 and its director from 1989-92. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the National Medal of Science in 1997. The American Philosophical Society's 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Science was awarded jointly to Francis H. C. Crick and James D. Watson. The citation on the prize certificate read, "In recognition of the determination of the structure of DNA, with Francis H. C. Crick, in 1953. Their brilliant discovery is universally recognized as one of the seminal events in biology in the twentieth century. The structure elegantly explained how DNA could replicate with the utmost fidelity. Their work launched one of the most productive areas of biological science - molecular biology." Dr. Watson is the author of Molecular Biology of the Gene (1965, 4th edition, 1986); The Double Helix (1968); The DNA Story, 1981; (with others) The Molecular Biology of the Cell (1983, 2nd edition, 1989, 3rd edition, 1994); (with J. Tooze and D. Kurtz) Recombinant DNA, A Short Course (1983, 2nd edition, 1992); A Passion for DNA (2000); Genes, Girls and Gamow (2001); DNA: The Secret of Life (2003); Darwin (foreword and commentary, 2005); Recombinant DNA: Genes and Genomes - A Short Course (with others, 2007); and Avoid Boring People (2007). Dr. Watson was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1977. | |
| |