The Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal is awarded by the Genetics Society of America (GSA) for lifetime contributions to the field of

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

. The medal is named after

Thomas Hunt Morgan Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an Americans, American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, Embryology, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries e ...

, the 1933

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

winner, who received this award for his work with

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' (), from Ancient Greek δρόσος (''drósos''), meaning "dew", and φίλος (''phílos''), meaning "loving", is a genus of fly, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or p ...

and his "discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosome in heredity." Morgan recognized that Drosophila, which could be bred quickly and inexpensively, had large quantities of offspring and a short life cycle, would make an excellent organism for genetic studies. His studies of the white-eye mutation and discovery of sex-linked inheritance provided the first experimental evidence that chromosomes are the carriers of genetic information. Subsequent studies in his laboratory led to the discovery of recombination and the first genetic maps. In 1981 the GSA established the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal for lifetime achievement to honor this classical geneticist who was among those who laid the foundation for modern genetics.

Laureates

Source
Genetics Society of America

References

Genetics awards Awards established in 1981 {{sci-award-stub

Laureates

See also

References