The German-Jewish geneticist Hans Grüneberg spent a good part of his career researching mouse genetics. After leaving Germany to escape the Nazi anti-Semitic policy, he worked at University College, London until his retirement. He wrote several important books on genetics.
Life and Career
Hans Grüneberg, born on 26 May 1907 in Wuppertal-Elberfeld in Germany, was a German-Jewish geneticist renowned for his research work on mouse genetics. He obtained a M.D. from Bonn, a Ph.D. in biology from Berlin and a D.Sc. from London.
He became interested in genetics in the 1920s, and having a background as a physician certainly helped him with his genetics research. He carried out Drosophila research and published papers that brought him to the attention of leading geneticists like Calvin Bridges and N.W. Timofeeff-Ressovsky. For a period (since at the time German Universities did not have too many openings in genetics) he joined Freiburg University as an assistant professor in anatomy. After the Nazis came into power in 1933, Grüneberg, like all Jewish teachers and professors, found himself without a job, and on the invitation and assistance of J.B.S. Haldane and Sir Henry Dale, he went to England. He worked as a honorary research assistant at University College, London, until 1938, and then received the Moseley Research Fellowship from the Royal Society until 1942.
During the Second World War, unlike his fellow émigré Charlotte Auerbach, he was interned for a while and then allowed to serve as a Captain with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Once the war had ended, in 1946, he returned to University College to take up post as Reader in Genetics and remained in that capacity until 1955. He was made a Professor in Genetics in 1956 and he also received a Royal Society Fellowship that same year. He retired from University College in 1974 and was made Emeritus Professor that year. In much the same period, from 1955 to 1972, he served as an Honorary Director of the Medical Research Council Experimental Genetics Unit at University College, London. He died on 23 October 1982.
Facts About Mice and Genetic Mutations
After his early research on Drosophila, much of Han Grüneberg's research career focus was on mouse genetics; on his retirement he diverted his attention to molluscs.
His work with mice led him to discover and describe an olfactory subsystem that we now know as the Grüneberg ganglion; it was named in his honor. The Grüneberg ganglion occurs in all mammals and is made up of 300-500 cells found at the nose opening. These ganglion cells have calcium that helps them to detect alarm pheromones and send a warning signal to the brain.
Hans Grüneberg was the first to notice the genetic effects of pleiotropy. Pleiotropy is a term used to explain the fact that when one gene is changed or mutated and expressed, it can affect or alter the entire phenotype. Grüneberg observed that one mouse gene mutation could lead to several physiological changes and health problems in the mouse. Research in recent years has shown that many human genetic health issues are often caused by a single gene altering or mutating and affecting the genetic system.
Grüneberg published several papers and books; some of the well-known of his books are -
- The genetics of the mouse, Cambridge University Press, 1943
- Animal genetics and medicine, Hamish Hamilton Medical Books, 1947
- The pathology of development: a study of inherited skeletal disorders in animals, Wiley, 1963
Resources
http://www.aics-research.com/research/pleiotropy.html
http://news.bio-medicine.org/biology-news-2/Gene-Linked-To-Glaucoma--Hydrocephalus--And-Other-Birth-Defects-14489-1/
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/4/5/335
http://www.genetics.org/cgi/reprint/24/5/732.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/rm171j8134638112/fulltext.pdf?page=1
Styles of scientific thought: the German genetics community, 1900-1933 - by Jonathan Harwood, University of Chicago Press, 1993
JBS: the life and work of J. B. S. Haldane - by Ronald William Clark, Coward-McCann, 1969