German-born U.S. biologist, a pioneer in the study of molecular genetics. With
Alfred Day Hershey and Salvador Luria, he was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize for
Physiology or Medicine for work on bacteriophages--viruses that infect bacteria.
Delbruck received a Ph.D. in physics (1930) from the University of Gottingen.
His interest in bacteriophages was aroused while he was a research assistant at
the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin (1932-37). A refugee from
Nazi Germany, Delbruck went to the United States in 1937, serving as a faculty
member of the California Institute of Technology (1937-39; 1947-81) and of
Vanderbilt University (1940-47). He became a U.S. citizen in 1945.
In 1939 Delbruck discovered a one-step process for growing bacteriophages
that, after a one-hour latent period, would multiply to produce several hundred
thousands of progeny. Delbruck soon began to collaborate with Luria, and in 1943
they announced their discovery that a bacterium that has been infected by a
bacteriophage can undergo spontaneous mutations so that it becomes immune to the
phage. In 1946 Delbruck and Hershey independently discovered that the genetic
material of different kinds of viruses can combine to create new types of
viruses. This process was previously believed to be limited to higher, sexually
reproducing forms of life.
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Jerry Jacob