Edmund B(eecher) Wilson

Geneticist, born in Geneva, Illinois, USA. After studying in Europe (1882–3), he taught at Williams College (1883–4), then moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1884–5). He became the first professor of biology at Bryn Mawr (1885–91), where he published his research on earthworm embryology and studies of movement in the invertebrate Hydra. In the 1890s he began the first of nearly 50 summers investigating marine biology at Wood's Hole, MA, realizing the importance of live specimens in his research. His work at Columbia University (New York City) (1891–1928) brought that institution to prominence in genetics and cytology. Inspired by Thomas H Morgan, he developed the theory of sex determination via X and Y chromosomes (1905–12), and recognized what came to be known as sex-linked inheritance. His monumental book, The Cell in Development and Inheritance (1896), became a mainstay of classrooms and underwent several revisions. He was a respected educator and an accomplished flautist and cellist.

served as professor of biology at Bryn Mawr College from 1885 to 1891; and at Columbia was adjunct professor of biology (1891-94), professor of invertebrate zoölogy (1894-97), and professor of zoölogy after 1897. Wilson, is credited as America's first cell biologist, in 1898 he used the similarity in embryos to describe phylogenetic relationships, by observing spinal cleavage in molluscs, flatworms and annelids he concluded that the same organs came from the same group of cells, he concluded that all these organisms must have a common ancestor. Professor Wilson published many special papers on embryology, and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1913. Sedgwick The Embryology of the Earthworm (1889) Amphioxus, and the Mosaic Theory of Development (1893) Atlas of Fertilization and Karyokinesis (1895) The Cell in Development and Inheritance (1896; second edition, 1915) This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.