Thomas Hunt Morgan

American geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan became a professor of zoology in 1904. Gregor Mendel had already shown how pea plants passed on different traits from one generation to the next. Morgan set out to see if this INHERITANCE pattern also occurred in animals.

Morgan studied genes by breeding mutant white-eyed flies with normal red-eyed flies.

The scientist who researched the role of CHROMOSOMES in inheritance

Flying high

Morgan STUDIED FRUIT FLIES. He discovered that they passed on dominant and recessive genes to their offspring. He found that genes are arranged on chromosomes like beads on a string, and that some are always inherited together. Two red-eyed flies could still produce white-eyed male offspring if the female carried the recessive gene for white eyes. His breakthrough discovery won him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1933.

By the way… The fruit flies in my experiments were fed on ripe bananas, and many visitors found the smell overpowering!

Morgan’s work on the link between chromosomes and inheritance paved the way for research How he changed… into areas such as genetic diseases. the wor ld

Morgan stored thousands of fruit flies in bottles in his laboratory, known as the Fly Room.