John Lee Hubby (March 19, 1932 – March 28, 1996) was an American geneticist, pioneer of

gel electrophoresis Gel electrophoresis is an electrophoresis method for separation and analysis of biomacromolecules (DNA, RNA, proteins, etc.) and their fragments, based on their size and charge through a gel. It is used in clinical chemistry to separate ...

, and co-author, with

Richard Lewontin Richard Charles Lewontin (March 29, 1929 – July 4, 2021) was an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, ...

, of foundational studies in the field of

molecular evolution Molecular evolution describes how Heredity, inherited DNA and/or RNA change over evolutionary time, and the consequences of this for proteins and other components of Cell (biology), cells and organisms. Molecular evolution is the basis of phylogen ...

. After earning a PhD from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

in 1959, Hubby took a postdoctoral fellowship at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, followed by a faculty position there. In the early 1960s, he developed new applications for gel electrophoresis. He applied the technique to identify different versions of the same protein, reflecting different

allele An allele is a variant of the sequence of nucleotides at a particular location, or Locus (genetics), locus, on a DNA molecule. Alleles can differ at a single position through Single-nucleotide polymorphism, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), ...

s for the same

genetic locus In genetics, a locus (: loci) is a specific, fixed position on a chromosome where a particular gene or genetic marker is located. Each chromosome carries many genes, with each gene occupying a different position or locus; in humans, the total numb ...

, in fruit flies. Hubby collaborated with Lewontin to produce two breakthrough papers in 1966 that used electrophoresis to determine the level of genetic variation in natural populations of ''

Drosophila pseudoobscura ''Drosophila pseudoobscura'' is a species of Drosophilidae, fruit fly, used extensively in lab studies of speciation. It is native to western North America. In 2005, ''D. pseudoobscura'' was the second ''Drosophila'' species to have its genome ...

''. Their studies revealed high levels of

heterozygosity Zygosity (the noun, zygote, is from the Greek "yoked," from "yoke") () is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism. Mos ...

relative to the predictions of most evolutionary theorists, and pioneered the study of molecular evolutionObituary: John Hubby, BSD
, ''Chicago Chronicle'', April 25, 1996, Vol. 15, No. 16. Accessed May 24, 2008

References

External links

Obituary, ''Chicago Chronicle''

* ttp://www.newspaperarchive.com/SiteMap/FreePdfPreview.aspx?img=108543672 Obituary, ''Santa Fe New Mexican'' 1932 births 1996 deaths American geneticists University of Chicago faculty University of Texas at Austin alumni People from Santa Fe, New Mexico {{geneticist-stub