Genetics in the United Kingdom — the Last Half-Century
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Heredity7l (1993) 111—118 Genetical Society of Great Britain Genetics in the United Kingdom — The Last Half-Century J. R. S. FINCHAM Thisyear's 16th International Congress of Genetics in Birmingham is the first to be held in the United Kingdom since the 7th (Edinburgh) Congress in 1939, just before the outbreak of war. This historical essay is an attempt to chart the most important developments in U.K. genetics between these two Congresses or, more precisely, during the post-war period. I have tried to identify the institutions and schools that have had the greatest influence on the growth of our subject, and to trace the connections between them. I must to some extent be biased by my own partial view of the field, and I apologize for any serious omissions. University, and establishing the fungus Aspergillus The early post-war scene nidulans as a model microbial eukaryote for genetic In1945therewere only a few centres in the U.K. for studies. The Cambridge University Botany School was teaching and research in genetics. There was the John another growth point for fungal genetics; Harold Innes Horticultural Institution (now the John Innes Whitehouse had already completed his Ph.D. work on Institute), then located in Merton, South London, with Neurospora sitophila and David Catcheside was about C.D. Darlington as Director. There were three institu- to import Neurospora crassa from CalTech. In R. A. tions concerned with plant breeding: the Plant Breed- Fisher's Genetics Department, L. L. Cavalli-Sforza was ing Institute in Cambridge and the Welsh and Scottish starting the work on the genetics of E. co/i that was to Plant Breeding Stations, near Aberystwyth and Edin- lead to his discovery of one of the first two high- burgh, respectively. In University College, London, frequency-recombination strains, HfrC. The other, there was the Galton Laboratory, with L. S. Penrose as HfrH, was found a little later by W. (Bill) Hayes, of the the Galton Professor of Eugenics, and the Department London Postgraduate Medical School in Hammer- of Biometry and Genetics with J. B. S. Haldane as smith. Hayes became the leader of the subsequent great Professor of Biometry. In Cambridge, R. A. Fisher expansion of bacterial genetics in the U.K. presided over a small Department of Genetics accommo- Two members of the John Innes Institution left to dated in an extension to his private house, while, on the seed genetics elsewhere. P. T. Thomas became Profes- other side of town in the Botany School, several young sor of Agricultural Botany in the University of Wales, geneticists and cytologists were working under the Aberystwyth to teach a generation of Welsh plant guidance of D. G. Catcheside. In the Oxford Zoology cytologists and geneticists, several of whom (H. J. Department, E. B. Ford, with his population studies on Evans, H. Rees, E. A. Bevan, K. W Jones) are Lepidoptera, was a pioneer in ecological genetics. mentioned below. And in 1948 Kenneth Mather The immediate post-war period was a time of new moved to Birmingham University to found a new departures. In 1945, C. H. Waddington was appointed Department of Genetics and a powerful school of head of the Genetics Section of the newly established biometrical genetics, the most notable member of Animal Breeding and Genetics Research Organization which, from the mid-1950s, was John L. Jinks, who (ABGRO —laterABRO), funded by the Agricultural succeeded Mather to the Chair in 1965. In 1950 Research Council (ARC). IN 1946, the Organization Darlington and the John Innes moved from Merton to moved from London to Edinburgh, where Waddington a fine country estate in Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire. had been appointed to the Chair of Genetics in succes- sion to F. A. E. Crew. This appointment led to many MRC initiatives further developments, of which more below. Early On the other side of Scotland, Guido Pontecorvo Someof the most significant early post-war develop- was starting a new Department of Genetics at Glasgow ments took place under the auspices of the Medical 111 112 J. R. S. FINCHAM Research Council (MRC). Most important of all, in that Western General Hospital under the direction of W. H. it was about to revolutionize our subject, was the MRC Court Brown. Since 1969 it has been headed by H. Molecular Biology Unit, established in Cambridge in JoIm Evans. Though modestly called a Unit, it became 1947 with Max Perutz as Director and John Kendrew a substantial Institute of international importance, with as his deputy. This Unit was concerned mainly with special strength in innovative chromosome technology, protein crystallography, but it also provided the venue characterization of human chromosome aberrations, for Jim Watson and Francis Crick's momentous eluci- and research on radiation effects, with extensive use of dation of DNA structure. A few years later it played the mouse as a model mammal. host for a while to Seymour Benzer, who was then engaged on his demolition of the classical concept of the gene. The Cambridge MRC Unit was the direct Theexpansion of genetics in the Universities precursor of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, established in 1962 in a large new building on The earliest Genetics Departments Hills Road with an all-star staff including Francis Crick, Atthe end of the 1940s there were independent Fred Sanger and Sydney Brenner. Crick and Brenner Departments of Genetics in four Universities —the led the molecular genetics group and attacked the long-established departments in Cambridge and Edin- coding problem, with results too well-known to need burgh and the new ones in Birmingham and Glasgow. description here. Edinburgh was the first of these to undergo major Another MRC initiative was their establishment of development. Soon after its move to Edinburgh in the Radiobiology Research Unit in Harwell. The inter- 1947, ABGRO was divided into the Animal Breeding ests of this Unit were by no means confined to radia- Research Organization (ABRO), a free-standing Insti- tion. In the 1950s, C. E. Ford carried out the first tute under H. P. Donald, later accommodated on the definitive studies on human chromosomes in meiosis. University campus, and the Agricultural Research In 1961 Mary Lyon demonstrated X-chromosome Council ARC Unit of Animal Genetics, which was inactivation in female mice; she had started her work in assimilated into the University Department to form the Edinburgh where the Harwell Unit had an outpost in Institute of Animal Genetics with Waddington as Head. its early days. It was in Edinburgh that Charlotte This ARC Unit became famous for its work on the Auerbach had (during the war) discovered chemical theory and practice of selection, with Alan Robertson mutagenesis. In 1958 the MRC established a Muta- (Drosophila and cattle) and Douglas Falconer (mice) as genesis Unit there under her direction, which was the leading figures. This interest, combined with continued until her retirement. theoretical population genetics, continues to flourish in The 1950s saw the first flowering of bacterial and Edinburgh under the leadership of Robertson's student bacteriophage genetics in the U.K., and this too was and successor W. G. (Bill) Hill. It had, and still has, a largely funded by the MRC In 1957 an MRC Unit of strong teaching aspect in the form of a unique post- Molecular Genetics was set up under Bill Hayes at graduate course in animal breeding, run in collabora- Hammersmith Hospital. This soon became an tion with the ABRO staff. extremely strong international centre for the develop- With their emphasis on animals, random mating and ment of E. co/i genetics in all its aspects. At the same small populations, the Edinburgh quantitative geneti- time, Martin Pollock, at the MRC National Institute for cists differed from their Birmingham counterparts Medical Research (NIMR) at Mill Hill (North (who were also supported by the ARC) both in London), was working on bacterial enzyme induction, methodology and, to some extent, in philosophy. This interacting with Jacques Monod's group in Paris. difference at least partly accounts for our having two Pollock and Hayes and their respective colleagues general genetics journals, Heredity and Genetical (including almost the whole strong Hammersmith Research (the longer-established Journal of Genetics group) were later (1968) to join forces in a new, was taken by Haldane to India in 1957). Genetical impressively housed Molecular Biology Department in Research, which started in 1960, was edited from the the University of Edinburgh —asuccessful hybrid Institute of Animal Genetics by Eric Reeve, who has between an MRC Institute and a University teaching continued in the job to this day. department. Waddington's own interest included both selection In 1956, after the clarification by Tjio and Levan in and animal development. His experiments on selection Sweden of the human karyotype, the time was ripe for for response to temperature stress led to his concept of a new initiative in human cytogenetics, and the MRC genetic assimilation, and his thinking about develop- set up the Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit ment to his ideas about canalization —modelledas (now the Human Genetics Unit) at the Edinburgh epigenetic landscapes'. For support for these interests GENETICS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 113 he turned to the MRC, and, from 1963, obtained fund- areas, notably cytology (Hubert Rees and later Gareth ing for an Epigenetics Unit, which obtained its own Jones) and bacterial genetics (Derek Smith, the Secre- building. The Edinburgh Epigenetics group, particu- tary of the present International Congress). larly Max Birnstiel, Ken Jones and John Bishop, made The Glasgow Department's great strength, derived a big mark in animal molecular biology, with from Pontecorvo, was always in Aspergillus genetics, pioneering work on such topics as rRNA genes, in situ which was important not only in itself but also for its hybridization of probes to chromosomes, and analysis impact on genetics in general.