Edmund beecher wilson biography

Concept 9 Specialized chromosomes determine sex.

Nettie Maria Stevens and Edmund Beecher Wilson both independently developed the idea of sex determination by chromosomes. Their work established the importance of chromosomes in heredity and helped Thomas Hunt Morgan interpret the early genetic results from Drosophila.

Edmund Beecher Wilson (1856-1939)


Edmund Beecher Wilson was born in Geneva, Illinois. He was the son of a judge, but instead of law, Wilson chose to study biology at Yale University (1878). He did graduate work at Johns Hopkins University (1878-81). Wilson's training was in the field of embryology; genetics as a science did not exist at the time. Between the years of 1885-1891, Wilson was a professor at Bryn Mawr College and taught biological sciences; he also traveled to Europe to continue his own investigations. Cytology, the study of chromosomes, was becoming more important. Wilson soon became an expert, and began investigating the role of heredity in cellular development.

In 1891, Wilson left Bryn Mawr to become a professor at the zoology department a

Edmund Beecher Wilson

American geneticist (1856–1939)

Edmund Beecher Wilson

Wilson between about 1885 and 1891, at Bryn Mawr College

Born(1856 -10-19)October 19, 1856

Geneva, Illinois, U.S.

DiedMarch 3, 1939(1939-03-03) (aged 82)

New York City, New York, U.S.

EducationYale University
Johns Hopkins University
Known forXY sex-determination system
SpouseAnne Maynard Kidder[1]
AwardsDaniel Giraud Elliot Medal(1925)
Linnean Medal(1928)
John J. Carty Award(1936)
Scientific career
Fieldszoology, genetics, embryology, cytology
InstitutionsWilliams College
MIT
Bryn Mawr College
Columbia University
Notable studentsWalter Sutton

Edmund Beecher Wilson (October 19, 1856 – March 3, 1939)[2] was a pioneering Americanzoologist and geneticist. He wrote one of the most influential textbooks in modern biology, The Cell.[3][4] He discovered the chromosomalXY sex-determination system in 1905. Nettie Stevens independently made the same discovery the same year and publis

Edmund Beecher Wilson contributed to cell biology, the study of cells, in the US during the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. His three editions of The Cell in Development and Inheritance (or Heredity) in 1896, 1900, and 1925 introduced generations of students to cell biology. In The Cell, Wilson described the evidence and theories of his time about cells and identified topics for future study. He helped show how each part of the cell works during cell division and in every step of early development of an organism. Developmental biologists trained in the mid-twentieth century reported Wilson’s text as their foundation for understanding biology, including about how cells, development, heredity, and evolution interact. Wilson considered cells as the center of all biological phenomena.

Wilson was born in Geneva, Illinois, on 19 October 1856 to Caroline Clarke and Isaac G. Wilson. His father graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wilson’s mother descended from a New England

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