Morris Soller

American-Israeli agricultural geneticist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Morris Soller (Hebrew: מוריס סולר; born 1931) is an American-Israeli research professor in the Department of Genetics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is especially interested in livestock- and crop- genetics including trypanotolerance in cattle.

Early life and education

Soller was born in Manhattan, New York City in 1931.[1][2] At the age of 12 he was first inspired to learn about genetics by reading The Theory of the Gene by Thomas Hunt Morgan.[3][1][4]: ix  While an undergraduate he read Jay Laurence Lush's Animal Breeding Plans and learned much from it[1][3] – and would receive the award named for Lush 50 years later – see below.[3] Soller also learned much from the writings of Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright during this time.[1] In 1951 he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Agriculture and then in 1956 both a Master's Degree in Applied Statistics and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Animal Breeding from Rutgers University.[2][3][1] He would later return to his birth country for further postdoctoral education at Indiana University and Roosevelt University in biochemistry.[2]

Research and teaching career

In 1957 he was hired by the Volcani Center as their senior scientist for animal breeding and by Bar-Ilan University as a senior lecturer of Biology and Genetics.[2] He moved his family to Israel where they have lived most of their lives since.[2] Between 1966 and 1972 Soller was a lecturer at Roosevelt University in the USA.[2] In 1972 he returned to Israel to lecture at the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of Genetics.[2] He would eventually become a full professor and emeritus professor in 2000.[2] He has since continued actively in lecturing and research including sabbaticals as the Cotswold Visiting Scientist at Iowa State University, at the University of Illinois and elsewhere.[2]

Soller is the originator of quantitative trait locus mapping and marker-assisted selection.[2][3] He began noticing the statistical patterns and composing the mathematical tools that would be required for these techniques in 1974, while studying crop genetics and livestock genetics.[2] He went on to collaborate with his students and peers to create the F2,[2] backcrossing,[2] full sib,[2] half sib,[2] granddaughter,[2][3] AIL[2] and selective DNA pooling[2][3] techniques in QTL mapping.[2] Along with other laboratories around the world, his group developed some of the earliest restriction fragment length polymorphism markers for cattle and microsatellite markers for chickens.[3]

He has especially become known for using these techniques to analyse trypanotolerance in cattle, especially in the N'Dama breed.[2][1] Soller has also applied QTL analysis to dairy traits and Marek's disease.[2][1]

Professional recognition

discovery of genetic science"[5]: 119 

Publications

As of 2012 Soller had authored and coauthored over 170 peer reviewed publications, and many book chapters and encyclopedia articles.[2][3] The organisms he has studied include cattle and chickens, but also extend to plants, viruses, mice, pigs and others.[3]

  • Kemp, Stephen J.; Iraqi, Fuad; Darvasi, Ariel; Soller, Morris; Teale, Alan J. (1997). "Localization of genes controlling resistance to trypanosomiasis in mice". Nature Genetics. 16 (2). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 194–196. doi:10.1038/ng0697-194. ISSN 1061-4036. PMID 9171834. S2CID 19998760. Localization of genes controlling resistance to trypanosomiasis in mice (Q58843113).
—Popularly cited including by[7][8][9][10][11]
— An autobiography Soller was invited to write by Annual Reviews

References

External links

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI