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

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

, and co-author, with Richard Lewontin, of foundational studies in the field of

molecular evolution Molecular evolution is the process of change in the sequence composition of cellular molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins across generations. The field of molecular evolution uses principles of evolutionary biology and population genetics ...

. 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 research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1959, Hubby took a postdoctoral fellowship at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, 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 (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution. ::"The chro ...

s for the same

genetic locus In genetics, a locus (plural 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 ...

, 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'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species ...

''. 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. Mo ...

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