Guido Pellegrino Arrigo Pontecorvo FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

(29 November 1907 – 25 September 1999) was an Italian-born Scottish geneticist.

Life

Guido Pontecorvo was born on 29 November 1907 in

Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...

into a family of wealthy Italian industrialists. He was one of eight children. He was a brother to Gillo Pontecorvo and Bruno Pontecorvo. He was dismissed from his post in Florence in 1938, due to his Jewish heritage. He then fled to Britain in 1939 with his new wife Leonore Freyenmuth (of German descent). *Institute of Animal Genetics,

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. 1938–40 and 1944–45 *Department of Zoology, University of Glasgow, 1941–44 *Dept of Genetics, University of Glasgow, 1945–68 (Professor 1956–68) *Honorary Director, MRC Unit of Cell Genetics, 1966–68 *Member of research staff, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, 1968–75 *Honorary Consultant Geneticist, ICRF, 1975–80 In 1946 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Alan William Greenwood, John Walton, Hugh Donald and James E. Nichols. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1955. Pontecorvo lived and worked in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

following his retirement from the University of Glasgow in 1968.Siddiqi, "Guido Pontecorvo. 29 November 1907 - 25 September 1999", ''

Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society The ''Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society'' is an academic journal on the history of science published annually by the Royal Society. It publishes obituaries of Fellows of the Royal Society. It was established in 1932 as ''Obi ...

'', p. 388. He died in Saint-Luc,

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, on 25 September 1999 while on holiday, and is buried there with his wife and his daughter.

Legacy

The Institute of Genetics building at the University of Glasgow was renamed as the Pontecorvo Building in 1995 in honour of Guido Pontecorvo and to celebrate 50 years of the institute in Glasgow. The Pontecorvo Building is part of the Anderson College complex located on Dumbarton Road in the West End of Glasgow. The building has been vacant since 2011 awaiting redevelopment. Until then it housed one of the few still operational paternoster elevators in the UK. He has also lent his name to the annual Pontecorvo Award, presented to the final year undergraduate student in the department with the highest grades.

References

1907 births 1999 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences 20th-century Italian Jews Scottish Jews Italian refugees Jews who immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism Jewish Italian scientists Italian geneticists Scottish geneticists British molecular biologists People from Pisa Italian emigrants to the United Kingdom Italian exiles {{Scotland-scientist-stub