Theodore Thomas Puck (September 24, 1916 – November 6, 2005) was an American geneticist born in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He attended Chicago public schools and obtained his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree from the

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

. His PhD work was on the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom and his doctoral adviser was

James Franck James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate i ...

. During WW II Puck stayed at the University of Chicago. There he worked in the laboratory of Oswald H. Robertson on the study of how bacteria and viruses can spread through the air and on dust particles. After a postdoc position in the laboratory of Renato Dulbecco, Puck was recruited in 1948 to establish and chair the

University of Colorado Medical School The University of Colorado School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Colorado system. It is located at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado, one of the four University of Colorado campuses, six miles east of downtown ...

's department of biophysics. He retired from the University of Colorado Medical School in 1995 as professor emeritus, but continued to do laboratory work there until a few weeks before his death. Puck was an early pioneer of "somatic cell genetics" and single-cell plating ( i.e. "cloning" .) This work allowed the genetics of human and other mammalian cells to be studied in detail. Puck's key work ultimately made modern genetics, such as the

human genome The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the ...

and other mammalian

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding g ...

projects, possible. Dr. Puck with the assistance of

Philip I. Marcus Philip I. Marcus (June 3, 1927 in Springfield, Massachusetts – September 1, 2013 in Farmington, Connecticut) was an American virologist and a leader in interferon research. From 2003 he was a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Molecul ...

, successfully cloned a

HeLa HeLa (; also Hela or hela) is an immortalized cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line is derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951, named after Henrietta ...

cell in 1955. Puck made many basic discoveries in several areas. Confirming research done in 1956 by

Joe Hin Tjio Joe Hin Tjio (2 November 1919 – 27 November 2001), was an Indonesian-born American cytogeneticist. He was renowned as the first person to recognize the normal number of human chromosomes on December 22, 1955 at the Institute of Genetics of the ...

, Puck's team found that humans had 46

chromosome A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...

s rather than 48 which had earlier been believed. He developed the CHO cell line from Chinese hamster ovarian cells for this work. These cells are still widely utilized in the bio pharmaceutical industry. Puck studied X-rays and cellular mutations. He also isolated and studied cellular mutations. Puck has won a number of honors for his work most notably the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1958. In 1973 he was awarded the

Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry is an annual prize awarded by Columbia University to a researcher or group of researchers who have made an outstanding contribution in basic research in the fields of biology or biochemist ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

together with Renato Dulbecco and

Harry Eagle Harry Eagle (July 13, 1905 – June 21, 1992) was an American physician and pathologist. He was born in New York City then studied, and later worked, at Johns Hopkins University before moving on to the National Institutes of Health. From 1961 to 1 ...

. Dulbecco won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1975. Puck also founded the

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

Institute at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univ ...

, where he was an emeritus professor. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1960, Puck published more than 200 papers on topics including Alzheimer's disease and

Down syndrome Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...

, and optimising radiotherapy dosages for the treatment of cancer. He died following complications from a broken hip. Upon his death he was survived by his widow, three daughters, and seven grandchildren.

References

Puck's page at the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
* "Theodore T. Puck." ''Notable Scientists: From 1900 to the Present'' Gale Group, 2001 Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005
''Science Daily'' obituary November 11, 2005

External links

The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Puck, Theodore 1916 births 2005 deaths University of Chicago alumni University of Colorado Denver faculty American geneticists Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the National Academy of Medicine