Famous Biologists

A History of Biology in Biography

Famous biologists from all eras of biology appear in this part of the website. Less emphasis is placed here on detailed personal information than on the contributions of individuals to the progress of science and to society. Here, the plan is to describe and explain the discoveries and accomplishments that made these individuals famous. Additions and corrections will be made to this page on an ongoing basis. FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (A) Louis Agassiz (1807-1873). Swiss-born American zoologist, geologist, and paleontologist, with a special expertise in ichthyology. Founder and director of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, one of the most famous scientists of his day. Read more >> Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605). Italian naturalist and physician. Together with Conrad Gesner, he led the Renaissance movement that placed a renewed emphasis on the study of the nature. Read more >> Mary Anning (1799-1847). British paleontologist. Often described as the greatest fossil hunter ever known. Read more >> Werner Arber (1929-). Swiss microbiologist and geneticist. Shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Hamilton Smith and Daniel Nathans for the discovery of restriction endonucleases, which led to the development of recombinant DNA technology. Read more >> Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Greek philosopher and scientist. Set up an organized framework of knowledge that served as the foundation for much of the science and philosophy of ancient and medieval times, and therefore for the science of modern times. Read more >> FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (B) Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876). German biologist and scientific explorer. One of the founders of embryology, von Baer discovered the notochord and the embryonic blastula. Read more >> David Baltimore (1938-). American biologist. Shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Temin and Renato Dulbecco for their discovery of reverse transcriptase. Read more >> George Beadle (1909-1975). American geneticist. By means of x-ray irradiation of the mold Neurospora crassa and screening of the resulting mutants, Beadle showed, with Edward Tatum, that mutations induced in genes corresponded to alterations in specific enzymes. This finding led to the acceptance of the one gene/one enzyme hypothesis. Shared with Tatum half the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Robert Brown (1773-1858). Scottish botanist. Leading collector of Australian plants. Often described as the discoverer of Brownian motion, but Jan Ingenhousz made the same discovery more than 40 years earlier. FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (C) Rachel Carson (1907-1964). American naturalist and science writer. Author of many popular magazine articles on biological topics, as well as Silent Spring (1962), her book warning of the long-term effects of pesticides, which is now seen as the start of the modern environmental movement. Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002). Austro-Hungarian-born American biochemist whose experiments provided crucial information allowing Watson, Crick, and Wilkins to elucidate the double-helix structure of DNA. Read more >> Francis Crick (1916-2004). American biologist. Shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and James Watson and Maurice Wilkins for determining the molecular structure of DNA. Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). French naturalist and zoologist. Founder of the fields of vertebrate paleontology and comparative anatomy. One of the most prolific authors of scientific literature of his own, or any, era. Ernst Mayr noted that Cuvier's "contributions to science are almost too extensive to be listed." Read more >> FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (C) FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (D) Raymond Dart (1893-1988). Pioneering paleoanthropologist. Discoverer of the Taung Child, he was the first scientist to provide hard evidence that humans first evolved in Africa. Read more >> Charles Darwin (1809-1882). English naturalist. Created the science of evolutionary biology. His book, On the Origin of Species, convinced many of the reality of evolution. Remembered for the theory of natural selection, the credit for which he had to share with Alfred Wallace, who formulated it independently. A Gentleman Naturalist - The Wealth Behind the Theory >> A Short Biography of Charles Darwin: Section I: Introduction Section II: Early School Years Section III: Cambridge Section IV: Voyage of the Beagle Section V: Return to England, Marriage, Lyell Section VI: Life and Work at Down, 1842-1876 Section VII: Addendum (written in 1881) Hugo de Vries (1848-1935). The most influential post-Darwinian saltationist up to the time of Eldredge and Gould, de Vries dominated evolutionary thought during the the early twentieth century. Read more >> Renato Dulbecco (1914-). Italian virologist. Shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Temin and David Baltimore for their discovery of reverse transcriptase. Read more >> FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (D) FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (E) Niles Eldredge (1943-). American paleontologist, who, along with Stephen Jay Gould, revived the saltationist tradition in biology by pointing out that the typical fossil form comes into being rapidly and remains largely the same thereafter, right up to the time of extinction ("punctuated equilibrium"). Read more >> FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (E) FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (F) Ronald Fisher (1890-1962). English statistician, evolutionary biologist, and geneticist. Made fundamental contributions to populations genetics and almost single-handedly created the field of modern statistics. Alexander Fleming (1881-1955). Scottish scientist and Nobel laureate. His discovery of penicillin launched the modern era of antibiotics. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1945). Famous Biologists - Macroevolution.net