Julia Bell (28 January 1879 – 26 April 1979) was a pioneering

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

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 processes ...

.Greta Jones, 'Bell, Julia (1879–1979)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 10 May 2008
/ref>

Biography

She attended

Girton College Girton College is one of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1 ...

in Cambridge and took the Mathematical Tripos exam in 1901. But because women could not officially receive degrees from Oxford or Cambridge, she was awarded a master's degree at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

for her work investigating

solar parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

at Cambridge Observatory. In 1908, she moved to

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

and obtained a position there as an assistant in statistics. Her

mentor Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...

was Karl Pearson (1857–1936), one of the founders of modern statistics, who in 1914 asked her to augment the expertise of the Galton Laboratory staff by taking a degree in medicine. She studied at the

London School of Medicine for Women The London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW) established in 1874 was the first medical school in Britain to train women as doctors. The patrons, vice-presidents, and members of the committee that supported and helped found the London School of Me ...

( Royal Free Hospital). She qualified in 1922 and was elected a Fellow of the

Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...

in 1938. Working as a member of the permanent staff of the Medical Research Council at the

Galton Laboratory The Galton Laboratory was a laboratory for research into eugenics and then into human genetics based at University College London in London, England. It was originally established in 1904, and became part of UCL's biology department in 1996. The a ...

, University College, Julia Bell did pioneering work in documenting the familial nature of many diseases. She wrote most of the sections in a unique series known as ''The Treasury of Human Inheritance'' published between 1909 and 1956, from The Galton Lab. Bell's "combination of mathematical training, genetic knowledge and clinical expertise yielded numerous important insights into human inheritance first appearing in the ''Treasury''," Harper noted. Julia Bell's ''Treasury of Human Inheritance'' "remains a valuable scientific as well as an historical record of the genetics of a range of important inherited disorders." In 1937 Julia Bell published a landmark article with

J. B. S. Haldane John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...

which reported a linkage between the

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...

s for

colourblindness Color blindness or color vision deficiency (CVD) is the decreased ability to see color or differences in color. It can impair tasks such as selecting ripe fruit, choosing clothing, and reading traffic lights. Color blindness may make some aca ...

and

haemophilia Haemophilia, or hemophilia (), is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding. This results in people bleeding for a longer time after an injury, easy bruising, ...

on the

X chromosome The X chromosome is one of the two sex-determining chromosomes (allosomes) in many organisms, including mammals (the other is the Y chromosome), and is found in both males and females. It is a part of the XY sex-determination system and XO sex ...

. This discovery was a key step toward the mapping of the human genome. Julia Bell kept working actively for many years. At age 82 she wrote an original article on rubella and

pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops (gestation, gestates) inside a woman, woman's uterus (womb). A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occur ...

; she retired at age 86; she kept in touch with genetics until her death at the age of 100. Besides the Martin–Bell syndrome, now known as the fragile X syndrome, Julia Bell's name is associated with five forms of

brachydactyly Brachydactyly (Greek βραχύς = "short" plus δάκτυλος = "finger"), is a medical term which literally means "short finger". The shortness is relative to the length of other long bones and other parts of the body. Brachydactyly is an in ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Julia 1879 births 1979 deaths English geneticists English centenarians Alumni of the London School of Medicine for Women Academics of University College London People from Sherwood, Nottingham Human geneticists English women academics Women centenarians Steamboat ladies