Thomas Hunt Morgan

In 1904, Thomas Hunt Morgan married Lilian Vaughan Sampson, an experimental biologist, who made significant contribution to his research on ‘Drosophila melanogaster’. She later became known for her discovery of attached-X chromosomes and ring chromosomes.

When they first met she was a student at Bryn Mawr and he was an associate professor at the same institute. In the initial years of their marriage, Lillian set aside her scientific career to raise their four children; one son and three daughters.

One of his daughters, Isabel Merrick Morgan, later became a virologist at Johns Hopkins University. She became known for her work on the preparation of an experimental vaccine to protect monkeys against polio.

Thomas Hunt Morgan was born on September 25, 1866, in Lexington, Kentucky into an influential family of Southern planters. His father, Charlton Hunt Morgan, was a former Confederate officer. His mother, Ellen Key Howard Morgan, was from Maryland.

After the Civil War, because of their involvement with the Confederation, the Morgans lost some of their civil and property rights. Consequently, the family had to go through a tough period.

Young Thomas spent a lot of time wandering in the countryside of Kentucky and Maryland, collecting birds’ eggs and fossils. It created in him an interest in natural history, which remained with him till his death.

In 1880, Morgan was admitted to the preparatory department of the College of Kentucky. Then in 1882, he received admission in the main College. As an undergraduate student, he focused on science and enjoyed studying natural history.

In 1886, he graduated as valedictorian with a B.S. degree in zoology. He then spent the summer at the Marine Biology School in Annisquam, Massachusetts, before shifting to John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Thomas Hunt Morgan completed his postdoctoral in 1891 and in autumn he was appointed as an Associate Professor of Biology at Bryn Mawr College. There he mainly taught the morphology related subjects.

Although he was a good teacher he was more interested in research work. He spent the first few years at the College researching on aquatic animals like sea acorns, ascidian worms and frogs.

Later in 1894, he took leave of absence for a year and went to Naples to conduct research in the laboratories of Stazione Zoologica. There he became familiar with the Entwicklungsmechanik School of experimental biology and completed an experimental study of ctenophore embryology.

Morgan was made a full professor in 1895. He now began to work on regeneration and development of larva, trying to distinguish between the external and internal causes. In 1897, he published his first book, ‘The Development of the Frog's Egg’.

Subsequently, he began a series of study on the capacity to regenerate in small animals like tadpoles, fish and earthworms. In 1901, he published his findings in another book called ‘Regeneration’.

Morgan is best remembered for his work on chromosome theory of inheritance. His researches with ‘Drosophila melanogaster’ provided incontrovertible evidence for the inheritance theory and made it acceptable to most biologists of the day. In addition, his success with Drosophila also made it one the most widely used model organism.