James Jeffrey Bull is Johann Friedrich Miescher Regents Professor in

Molecular Biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

at 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, 11,07 ...

. He is best known for his influential 1983 monograph, ''Evolution of Sex Determining Mechanisms''. In the early 1990s, he changed the focus of his work to

experimental evolution Experimental evolution is the use of laboratory experiments or controlled field manipulations to explore evolutionary dynamics. Evolution may be observed in the laboratory as individuals/populations adapt to new environmental conditions by natura ...

and

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups ...

, and has since had considerable success in both fields. His work in experimental evolution involves observing genetic and phenotypic changes in

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...

and bacteriophages, the

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's ...

that attack bacteria. In 2003 he was elected a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. In 2016 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences..

Bibliography

*''Evolution of sex determining mechanisms''. 1983. Menlo Park, California: The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc.

References

External links

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21st-century American biologists Evolutionary biologists Phage workers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Texas at Austin people Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences {{US-biologist-stub