William Martin Gelbart | |
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Born | September 11, 1945 |
Died | August 11, 2015 | (aged 69)
Alma mater | Brooklyn College, University of Wisconsin |
Awards | George W. Beadle Award (2010) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Genetics |
Institutions | Harvard University |
William Martin Gelbart (September 11, 1945 - August 11, 2015) was an American geneticist and a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University. He was best known for his work with fly genetics, the discovery of decapentaplegic (dpp), and the formation of FlyBase. [1] [2] He was a member of the National Advisory Council for the Human Genome Project. [3]
Gelbart was born in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his B.S. in biology from Brooklyn College in 1966 after attending Harpur College at Binghampton University from 1962 to 1963. [4] He received a PhD in genetics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1971 with Allen S. Fox. [1]
Gelbart did his postdoctoral work with Edward B. Lewis at Caltech and Art Chovnick at the University of Connecticut. He began his career at Harvard University in 1976 before becoming a full professor in 1983. His research was focused on molecular basis of pattern formation using the fruit fly as a model system. Using transvection, his group identified decapentaplegic, an locus containing an ortholog of human bone morphogenetic proteins. [5] [1] Gelbart was a major leader in consolidating the findings of the Drosophila community into FlyBase along with Michael Ashburner, Rachel Drysdale, Gerry Rubin, Thom Kaufman and Kathy Matthews. [2]