The 1999 George W. Beadle Medal
Year: 2000
Type: article
Abstract: IT is a pleasure to recognize Michael Ashburner as the first awardee of the George W. Beadle Medal. Michael's early work on the regulation of ecdysone-induced chromosome puffs in Drosophila is truly seminal and laid the foundation for all subsequent work in the field. His model of the regulation of early vs. late puffs, which he drew from genetic and cytogenetic observations, is now largely supported by the molecular analyses carried out by his scientific progeny, all of whom acknowledge Michael's insight and founding contribution to their work. Michael continues to play a very significant role in the Drosophila community. Over the years he has established himself as the repository of an encyclopedic amount of information on the genetics of flies and the relationship of the Drosophila system to other genetically tractable systems. He is one of the founding members of FlyBase, an electronic database of the genetics of Drosophila. He has produced, by editorial prowess or writing them himself, several extremely valuable compendia on the genetics and biology of Drosophila. These contributions to the community are widely recognized as invaluable to research in the area, and have earned Michael a prominent international reputation. It is not an overstatement to argue that Michael's book, Drosophila: A Laboratory Handbook, was instrumental in providing a critical primer on the “real genetics” of Drosophila to those entering the field from other disciplines. It is now cited as the primary source for many basic genetic techniques and approaches. Prior to the laboratory handbook, Michael's Genetics and Biology of Drosophila anthology served as the core repository of information regarding fly genetics and biology from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
Source: Genetics
Authors: R Scott Hawley, Thomas C Kaufman
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1955511674
