biography
pronunciation:
[delbrük]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1906–81)
|
| biography:
| Geneticist and virologist, born in Berlin, Germany. Trained as a physicist, he performed research in Europe, where he devised mathematical proofs for the chemical bonding of lithium and published two scientific papers on quantum mechanics. He began his fundamental investigations on bacteria and their viruses (bacteriophages) after coming to the USA to join the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) (1937–9). He continued his bacteriophage research through his years at Vanderbilt University (1940–7), where he showed that viruses can recombine genetic material (1946). Back with Caltech (1947–76), he later turned his interest to sensory physiology. With fellow bacteriophage researchers Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey, he won the 1969 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to viral genetics. |
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