Curt Stern

From Freepedia

Curt Stern (August 30 1902 - October 23 1981) was a German-American geneticist. He made several important genetic discoveries, demonstrating chromosomal crossover in Drosophila weeks after Barbara McClintock and Harriet Creighton had done so in 1931. He demonstrated that there were multiple genes on the Drosophila Y chromosome and described the mechanism of dosage compensation. During World War II he led research for the American government on low dose radiation safety, his group concluding that there is no "safe" threshold below which radiation is not harmful. After the War his research focussed on human genetics; he wrote the very successful textbook Principles of Human Genetics, and studied what is now known as gene regulation.