Edmund Beecher Wilson (October 19, 1856 – March 3, 1939) was a pioneering American

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

and

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 ...

. He wrote one of the most influential textbooks in modern biology, ''The Cell''.

Career

Wilson was born in

Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

, the son of Isaac G. Wilson, a judge, and his wife, Carioline Clark. He graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1878. He earned his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at Johns Hopkins in 1881. He was a lecturer at

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

in 1883–84 and at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1884–85. He served as

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United ...

from 1885 to 1891. In 1888, he was elected as a member to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

. He spent the balance of his career at

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 ...

where he was successively adjunct professor of biology (1891–94), professor of

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

zoology (1894–1897), and professor of zoology (from 1897). Wilson is credited as America's first

cell biologist Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...

. In 1898 he used the similarity in embryos to describe

phylogenetic 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 o ...

relationships. By observing spiral cleavage in molluscs, flatworms and annelids he concluded that the same organs came from the same group of cells and concluded that all these organisms must have a

common ancestor Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...

. He was elected a Fellow 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 1902. He also discovered the

chromosomal 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 ...

XY sex-determination system The XY sex-determination system is a sex-determination system used to classify many mammals, including humans, some insects (''Drosophila''), some snakes, some fish ( guppies), and some plants ('' Ginkgo'' tree). In this system, the sex of an i ...

in 1905—that males have XY and females XX sex chromosomes.

Nettie Stevens Nettie Maria Stevens (July 7, 1861 – May 4, 1912) was an American geneticist who discovered sex chromosomes. In 1905, soon after the rediscovery of Mendel's paper on genetics in 1900, she observed that male mealworms produced two kinds of sper ...

independently made the same discovery the same year. In 1907, he described, for the first time, the additional or supernumerary chromosomes, now called B-chromosomes. The same year he became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wilson published many papers on embryology, and served as

president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), founded in 1848, is the world's largest general scientific society. It serves 262 affiliated societies and academies of science and engineering, representing 10 million individuals wo ...

in 1913. For his volume, ''The Cell in Development and Inheritance'', Wilson was awarded the

Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal The Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for meritorious work in zoology or paleontology study published in a three- to five-year period." Named after Daniel Giraud Elliot, it was first awarded in 1917. ...

from the National Academy of Sciences in 1925.

The American Society for Cell Biology The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a professional society that was founded in 1960.E. B. Wilson Medal in his honor.

Sutton and Boveri

In 1902 and 1903

Walter Sutton Walter Stanborough Sutton (April 5, 1877 – November 10, 1916) was an American geneticist and physician whose most significant contribution to present-day biology was his theory that the Mendelian laws of inheritance could be applied to chrom ...

suggested that chromosomes, which segregate in a Mendelian fashion, are hereditary units: "I may finally call attention to the probability that the association of paternal and maternal chromosomes in pairs and their subsequent separation during the reducing division ... may constitute the physical basis of the Mendelian law of heredity". Wilson, who was Sutton's teacher and Boveri's friend, called this the " Sutton-Boveri Theory". Between 1902 and 1904 Theodor Heinrich Boveri (1862–1915), a German biologist, made several contributions to chromosome theory in a series of papers, finally stating in 1904 that he had seen the link between chromosomes and Mendel's results in 1902 (although this is not documented in his publications).Boveri T. 1904. ''Ergebnisse uber die Konstitution der chromatischen Substanz des Zellkerns''. Fischer, Jena. He said that chromosomes were "independent entities which retain their independence even in the resting nucleus... What comes out of the nucleus is what goes into it".

Works

* ''An Introduction to General Biology'' (1887), with W. T. Sedgwick * ''The Embryology of the Earthworm'' (1889) * ''

Amphioxus The lancelets ( or ), also known as amphioxi (singular: amphioxus ), consist of some 30 to 35 species of "fish-like" benthic filter feeding chordates in the order Amphioxiformes. They are the modern representatives of the subphylum Cephalochorda ...

, and the Mosaic Theory of Development'' (1893) * ''Atlas of Fertilization and

Karyokinesis In cell biology, mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle in which replicated chromosomes are separated into two new nuclei. Cell division by mitosis gives rise to genetically identical cells in which the total number of chromosomes is maintai ...

'' (1895) * ''The Cell in Development and Inheritance'' (1896; second edition, 1915; third edition, 1925) * ''The Physical Basis of Life'' (1923) *

References

Bibliography

* Al-Awqati, Q. 2002
Edmund Beecher Wilson: America's First Cell Biologist
Living Legacies, Columbia University. * Gilbert, S. F. 2003
Edmund Beecher Wilson and Frank R. Lillie and the relationship between evolution and development
''Developmental Biology'', Seventh edition, Sinauer * * * * *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Edmund Beecher 1856 births 1939 deaths American science writers American geneticists American zoologists Johns Hopkins University alumni Yale University alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences People from Geneva, Illinois Members of the American Philosophical Society