Edward B. Lewis

In 1946, Edward Lewis met Pamela Harrah. She was a Stanford graduate, who joined Caltech as stock keeper of the Caltech Drosophila Stock Center on the invitation of George W. Beadle. She was also an accomplished artist whose paintings would always have insects in them.

Edward and Pamela got married a few months after their meeting and remained together until his death. They had three sons; Hugh, Glenn, and Keith. Among them, Glen has passed away. Hugh is now an attorney at Bellingham and Keith is a biology research assistant at Berkeley.

Edward B. Lewis died from prostate cancer on July 21, 2004.

Edward Butts Lewis was born on May 20, 1918, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. His father, also Edward Butts Lewis, worked in a jewelry store as watchmaker-jeweler. When in 1929, the Great Depression set in, he lost his job and the family had to face tremendous economic hardship.

In spite of that, Edward’s mother, Laura Mary Lewis (née Histed), always encouraged her children to study. His only brother, James Lewis, was five and half years older to him. They also had a sister, Mary Louise Lewis, who died the night before James was born.

Edward had his early education at Elmer L. Meyers Junior/Senior High School. While studying there he developed an interest in biology and was especially interested in toads and snakes. Once his mother found a rattlesnake in his cupboard; he had kept it there because he was yet to build a terrarium for it.

During this period, he also paid regular visit to the Wilkes-Barre’s Osterhout Public Library. There in 1933/1934, he saw an advertisement for fruit flies (Drosophila melanosgaster) in the Science Magazine and acquired large number of it for the school’s biology club.

Next, Lewis and his classmate Edward Novitski began breeding them in the school laboratory and once new flies were hatched, they studied them under magnifying glass trying to find rare mutants. The event unknowingly launched him in his future career.

In 1946, on being released from the military service, Edward Lewis joined California Institute of Technology as an instructor in the Biology Division. In the same year, he was given the responsibility for supervising the extensive Caltech Drosophila Stock Center and began working with them.

In 1947-1948, he worked as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the University of Cambridge. On coming back to the U.S.A, he rejoined Caltech as an Assistant Professor of Biology and served in that capacity from 1948 to 1949.

In 1949, he was promoted to the post of the Associate Professor of Biology. He soon discovered that the bithorax family of mutants was actually a cluster of genes. Eventually, he called them the bithorax gene complex.

In 1951, he hypothesized that the bithorax gene cluster functioned as a regulator of the body plan and controlled the development of particular body segments. He also concluded that mutations in this region changes one segment of the body into copy of the adjacent segment.

In 1956, Lewis became a full Professor of Biology, remaining in the post till 1966. Meanwhile from the middle of the 1950s, he started a study on the effects nuclear tests, X-rays and other sources of radiations on human health.

Edward B. Lewis is best remembered for his discovery of Drosophila Bithorax gene complex and illumination of its function. He also established that genes are arranged according to colinearity principle, which means they appear in the same order as their corresponding body segments.

He explained that the first set of genes controls the functions of head and thorax; the middle set controls the functions of abdomen; and the last set controls the functions of the posterior section. He also pointed out this genetic functions may overlap and this he established with a creation of a mutant fly with four wings.

His work with Drosophila laid the foundation of developmental genetics. It also helped scientists to understand the reason behind different types of deformities, both in humans and higher animals.