Seymour Benzer, Ph.D.[Physics]
Seymour Benzer, Ph.D.[Physics]
National Medal of Science – Biological Sciences 1982
Name: Seymour Benzer
Birth: 15 October, 1921 New York City
Death: 30 November, 2007 Pasadena, CA
Institution: California Institute of Technology Pasadena,California USA
Award: “For elucidating the fine structure of the gene and unifying the classical and molecular concepts of gene structure and function.”
Presented by President Reagan at a White House Ceremony on May 24, 1983.
Age Awarded: 61
Education, Mentors: New Utrecht High School. Brooklyn College, physics & chemistry 1942. Ph.D. Physics, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, 1947. Ph.D. mentor physicist Karl Lark-Horowitz. Research mentor Max Delbruck, Medicine Nobelist, 1969.
Biography
Books
Death
Defining Moment
Family
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Youth
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Nat’l Medal Science
Youth
In the summer in the Catskills, Seymour Benzer caught frogs and dissected them using the family’s clothes-making tools. On his 13th birthday his uncle presented him a microscope with which he established a lab in the basement. His high school chemistry teacher and the school Chemistry Club at the New Utrecht High School were very encouraging of scientific interests.
In the stock market crash of 1929, the family had lost the money saved for his college education. Seymour Benzer had Regents Scholarship for undergraduate degree in Brooklyn College where he studied physics & chemistry, ‘forgoing biology because the taxonomic approach typical of biology teaching of the day seemed much less challenging.’