Biology Research Starter: Notable Biologists

British naturalist who revolutionized the study of biology with his theory of evolution based on natural selection. His most famous works include Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871).

He was the world’s leading authority on the land snails of the West Indies, and was also known for espousing a modification of the traditional Darwinian theory of evolution, what he called ‘punctuated equilibria’, namely, that new species occasionally appear more quickly than the slow, steady, gradual process of Darwinian natural selection accounts for.

English biologist and essayist. A leading advocate of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, Huxley combined his philosophical ideas with scientific exposition. He wrote essays from an ‘agnostic’ viewpoint (a term he introduced) and held that scientific discoveries had neither given support to, nor discredited, religious faith.

Ornithologist and evolutionist, born in Kempten, Germany. He was assistant curator of zoology at the museum of the University of Berlin (1926–32).

Swiss-born American naturalist noted for his study of fossil fish and for recognizing from geologic evidence that ice ages had occurred in the Northern Hemisphere.

Naturalist and broadcaster, born in London, UK, the brother of Richard Attenborough.

Baer led expeditions to Arctic Russia to collect plant and animal specimens, studied fishes and collected human skulls (in 1859 he suggested that human skulls might have a common ancestral type, but he never supported Darwin’s ideas). His fame rests on his position as a founder of modern embryology.

German naturalist and explorer.

Jenner was a keen naturalist, with a special interest in birds: he was the first to show that some birds migrated (rather than hibernated) in winter, and he studied the unusual brood-parasite nesting of the cockoo.

French naturalist. He is noted for his study and classification of invertebrates and for his introduction of evolutionary theories.

Explorer, naturalist, and conservationist, born in Dunbar, East Lothian, E Scotland, UK.

Dutch naturalist known for his pioneering microscopic research. He was the first to describe red blood cells (1658).

British naturalist who developed a concept of evolution that paralleled the work of Charles Darwin. His works include The Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876).

German bacteriologist who founded chemotherapy - the use of a chemical substance to destroy disease organisms in the body. He was also one of the earliest workers on immunology.

British bacteriologist who discovered penicillin.

US biologist; discovered that DNA was the genetic material of life; 1969 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine with Delbrück and Luria.

Japanese bacteriologist who discovered the plague bacillus while investigating an outbreak of plague in Hong Kong. He was the first to grow the tetanus bacillus in pure culture.

US virologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1975 for his work with Renato Dulbecco and Howard Temin in discovering that certain viruses contain an enzyme, called reverse transcriptase, that makes deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from ribonucleic acid (RNA).

US virologist and molecular biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989 with Harold Varmus for their discovery of oncogenes (cancer-causing genes), which, when over-activated or damaged, trigger a normal cell to divide in an uncontrolled fashion.

English virologist whose research has focused on cancer and influenza. In 1959 he succeeded in carrying out genetic mapping of an animal virus for the first time.

Russian-born US virologist who devoted his long and distinguished career to the development of protective vaccines.

The outstanding advance in the life sciences in this century has been the creation of a new branch of science: molecular biology. In this, Crick has been a central figure and its key concept, that the self-replicating genetic material DNA has the form of a double helix with complementary strands, is due to him and J D Watson.

American biologist who with Francis Crick proposed a spiral model, the double helix, for the molecular structure of DNA. He shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for advances in the study of genetics.

Franklin deduced from X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA that the long, chain-like DNA molecules might be arranged in a helical form, with the phosphate groups on the outside. Her death at age 37 excluded her from consideration for the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1962, which was shared by Crick, Watson and Wilkins.

British (South African-born) geneticist and one of the pioneers of genetic engineering.

U.S. biologist, born in Russia, noted for work on evolution and genetic variation.

US geneticist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1985 with Michael Brown for their work on the regulation of cholesterol metabolism. They discovered that the gene mutated in familial hypercholesterolaemia, a condition in which patients have very high blood cholesterol, is the gene for receptors involved in the removal of cholesterol from the bloodstream.

U.S. geneticist, who discovered the phenomenon of transduction in bacteria. Nobel prize for physiology or medicine 1958 with George Beadle and Edward Tatum.

American genetic botanist. She won a 1983 Nobel Prize for discovering that genes are mobile within the chromosomes of a plant cell.

Austrian botanist and founder of the science of genetics. Through experiments with plants, chiefly garden peas, he discovered the principle of the inheritance of characteristics through the combination of genes from parent cells.

US geneticist and embryologist famous for his pioneering work on the genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster - now extensively used in genetic research - and for establishing the chromosome theory of heredity.

US geneticist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1946 for his discovery, in 1926, that X-ray irradiation can cause mutation. This showed that mutations are nothing more than chemical changes.

US geneticist who was the first, in 1911, to map the position of genes on a chromosome. He worked with US biologist Thomas Morgan.

Basing his ideas in part on his earlier work on the sex cells of hydrozoa, he proposed that all organisms contain a ‘germplasm’, associated especially with the ovum and sperm cells, which he later located in what are now called the chromosomes. In his view, it was germplasm that gave the continuity from parent to offspring.

US neuroscientist. With US neuroscientist Linda Buck he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2004 for his contributions in determining how the olfactory system recognizes and differentiates between different smells.

Scottish anatomist and surgeon who carried out pioneering research on the human nervous system. He gave his name to Bell's palsy, an extracranial paralysis of the facial nerve - not the same as the long thoracic nerve of Bell, which he also named and which supplies a muscle in the chest wall.

US neuroscientist. With US neuroscientist Richard Axel she shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2004 for her contributions to understanding how the olfactory system is able to recognize and differentiate between different smells.

French neurologist known for his research into diseases of the nervous system. Sigmund Freud was one of his pupils.

US neurologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for discoveries, including the ‘prion’ theory, that could lead to new treatments of dementia-related diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.