Do all fruit flies look identical? Perhaps some have larger wings, darker color, white or red eyes? True, fruit flies are tiny, but if you ask Thomas Hunt Morgan, he would know. Nobel Prize wining scientist Thomas Hunt Morgan was born on September 25,1866, in Lexington, Kentucky. He graduated from State College ( now the University of Kentucky) and received a doctorate from John Hopkins University in Baltimore. In 1904, as a professor of Experimental Zoology at Columbia University, Dr. Morgan began the research into heredity that would later earn him worldwide acclaim. In 1933, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine, the first one ever given to a non-physician.

Fascinated by Gregor Mendel's studies in pea heredity, Morgan wanted to know more about how traits of the parent are passed to their offspring. Since the common fruit fly produces over thirty generations per year it was ideal for Morgan's studies. By crossbreeding, inbreeding,and backbreeding thousands of flies and carefully observing the traits passed from generation to generation, Morgan and his colleagues formed the Chromosome Theory of Heredity. This theory is the basis for a branch of biology called Genetics. Genetics includes the study of heredity which is how offspring inherit the ccharacteristics of their parents.

Morgan died on December 4, 1945. The University of Kentucky honored Dr. Morgan's important work in heredity by naming its school of biological science after him.

 Source:

Shine, Ian. Thomas Hunt Morgan: Pioneer of Genetics. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky 1976.