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 >> Links to Biographies: Louis Agassiz >> Ulisse Aldrovandi >> Mary Anning >> Aristotle >> Karl Ernst von Baer >> Erwin Chargaff >> Georges Cuvier >> Raymond Dart >> Charles Darwin >> Conrad Gesner >> Alexander von Humboldt >> Jan Ingenhousz >> Jean-Baptiste Lamarck >> Louis and Mary Leakey >> Carolus Linnaeus >> Charles Lyell >> Gregor Mendel >> Pliny the Elder >> Adam Sedgwick >> Alfred Russel Wallace >> 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. FAMOUS BIOLOGISTS (C) 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 >> 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. Read more >> NEWS PAGES ON THIS WEBSITE:  Health   Biology    Oceans   Environment   Astrobiology   Animals   Fossils   Earth   Molecular   Biotechnology  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. Read more >> A Short Biography of Charles Darwin >> Charles Darwin facts — Basic facts about Darwin>> A Gentleman Naturalist — The Wealth Behind the Theory >> 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 (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 >>