Brief Chronology

  • 1912 --Born in Turin, Italy, on August 13th
  • 1935 --Received MD from University of Turin
  • 1936-37 --Military service in Italy
  • 1938 --Postdoctoral training in radiology and physics at University of Rome
  • 1938-40 --Resident Fellow, Institute of Radium, Paris
  • 1940-42 --Emigrated to United States and became research assistant in surgical bacteriology at Columbia University
  • 1941 --Met Max Delbrück; first summer at Cold Spring Harbor; worked with Thomas Anderson at University of Pennsylvania on electron micrographs of phage
  • 1942 --Guggenheim fellowship with Max Delbrück at Vanderbilt University
  • 1943 --First described "fluctuation test" as method for calculating bacterial mutation rates; beginnings of "phage group"
  • 1943-47 --Instructor, then assistant professor of bacteriology at Indiana University
  • 1945 --Married Zella Hurwitz
  • 1945-46 --On leave at Cold Spring Harbor, working as investigator for Office of Scientific Research and Development, Carnegie Institute of Washington, research on bacterial resistance to antibiotics
  • 1947 --Became U.S. citizen; became associate professor of bacteriology at Indiana University
  • 1950-59 --Professor of Bacteriology at University of Illinois at Urbana
  • 1952 --Studies of host-induced bacteriophage modifications revealed a new phenomenon: restriction/modification
  • 1953 --Published first edition of textbook General Virology
  • 1955 --Became editor of Virology (until 1972)
  • 1959 --Appointed chair of Microbiology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  • 1960 --Elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences
  • 1963-64 --Guggenheim fellowship at Pasteur Institute in Paris; began working on colicins and cell membranes
  • 1964 --Appointed Sedgewick Professor of Biology at MIT
  • 1967 --Joined Board of Trustees at Salk Institute
  • 1969 --Awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Max Delbrück and Alfred Hershey
  • 1970 --Appointed Institute Professor at MIT
  • 1972 --Became Director of new Center for Cancer Research at MIT
  • 1974 --Won National Book Award for Life--the Unfinished Experiment (1973)
  • 1985 --Retired from MIT Center for Cancer Research
  • 1990 --Received patent for a genetically engineered strain of E. coli
  • 1991 --Died on February 6th