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 letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

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

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processe ...

Life

Guido Pontecorvo was born on 29 November 1907 in

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' 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 its leaning tower, the cit ...

into a family of wealthy Italian industrialists. He was one of eight children. He was a brother to

Gillo Pontecorvo Gilberto Pontecorvo (; 19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama ''The Battle of Algiers'' (19 ...

and

Bruno Pontecorvo Bruno Pontecorvo (; russian: Бру́но Макси́мович Понтеко́рво, ''Bruno Maksimovich Pontecorvo''; 22 August 1913 – 24 September 1993) was an Italian and Soviet nuclear physicist, an early assistant of Enrico Fermi an ...

. 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 ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. 1938–40 and 1944–45 *Department of Zoology,

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, 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 Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

, 1968–75 *Honorary Consultant Geneticist, ICRF, 1975–80 In 1946 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. 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 and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

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 ''Obitu ...

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

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, 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 elevator A paternoster (, , or ) or paternoster lift is a passenger elevator which consists of a chain of open compartments (each usually designed for two people) that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building without stopping. Passengers ca ...

s 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