ABSTRACT
Hermann Joseph Muller was the founder of radiation genetics and one of the few geneticists who exercised enormous influence upon the successful development of genetics in the first half of the twentieth century. Muller resented the extra work he had to seek outside to support himself, which left little time for his research, while Morgan provided full-time support for Sturtevant and Bridges for their research in the fly lab. Muller’s classic work, using truncated and beaded wings, demonstrated the complex relationship between the main gene and its genetic as well as its environmental modifiers. Muller traced the path of mutation after its origin by using developmental models of somatic and germinal distribution of mutant cells. In 1926, using a dentist’s X-ray machine, Muller began an intensive series of experiments on the induction of mutations. Muller’s career reached a crisis point in the 1930s due to the convergence of personal and professional problems.
