The Centenary of GENETICS: Bridges to the Future
Wednesday, 2016/01/13 | 07:51:28
|
Barry Ganetzky, R. Scott Hawley
Figure: Models of secondary nondisjunction.
One hundred years ago, in the first paper in the first edition of GENETICS, Calvin Blackman Bridges provided evidence for the chromosome theory of inheritance, laying the groundwork for much of the genetics research that has followed (Bridges 1916). As we discuss a paper that is arguably a cornerstone of modern genetic analysis, it is well worth remembering that this two-part paper was the report of Bridges’s Ph.D. thesis work (indeed, we find it sobering to compare the impact of our own theses to that of Bridges’s). Bridges’s 1916 paper described nondisjunction (improper chromosome segregation), explained how evidence of nondisjunction during meiosis provided proof that chromosomes contained the genetic material and illustrated how sex determination works in Drosophila melanogaster. The scientific insights Bridges made in this seminal paper were instrumental to subsequent experimental studies of meiosis, and his influence is still felt in genetics labs today.
As much as we are able to appreciate the significance of this accomplishment with a century of hindsight, we cannot help but wonder if the importance of Bridges’s paper was equally obvious to the first editorial board of GENETICS, of which Bridges’s thesis advisor Thomas Hunt Morgan was a member. It would be an interesting exercise for the current editorial board to try to identify a paper to be published in the next year in GENETICS that they believe will still be lauded a century later for its continuing legacy and enduring impact. The selection of Bridges’s masterpiece as the first paper published in GENETICS reflects either amazing prescience by the editorial board or an extremely fortuitous choice. Either way, they could not have gotten the journal off to a better start.
See more details: Genetics January 5 , 2016 vol. 202 no. 1 15-23 http://www.genetics.org/content/202/1/15?etoc
|
Back Print View: 811 |
[ Other News ]___________________________________________________
|