S. E. Luria
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
August 13, 1912 - February 7, 1991
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Scientific Discipline: Genetics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1960)
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S.E. Luria was a pioneer in the field of microbiology. With the German physicist Max Delbrück, he explained the genetic mechanics involved in the reproduction of viruses and their ability to quickly mutate by using bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacterial cells and rapidly multiply until they burst the cell and release the virus. Luria and Delbrück found evidence that the genes of the bacteriophages mutated to bypass the bacteria’s resistance against the invading phages in 1943. The rapidly-occurring mutations gave rise to several different variations of the phages in the bacteria, and it became known as “the jackpot effect” in which identical bacterial cultures could produce multiple types of mutations. This eventually provided the evidence of the existence of chromosomes within bacteria (E. coli in this experiment) and its phages. Luria’s studies of bacteriophages and their mutations have been claimed to be the basis for modern molecular biology. Despite fleeing Europe in order to escape the Anti-Semitic movement of WWII, Luria managed to establish himself as a renowned microbiologist in his home country of Italy, as well as the United States. Along with his impressive scientific background, Luria was equally invested in the humanities, and he published an award-winning book entitled Life: The Unfinished Experiment in 1973.
Luria was an Italian immigrant who earned his M.D. from the University of Turin (in Italy) in 1935. He went on to conduct research at Columbia University, Vanderbilt, Princeton, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington from 1938 to 1946. He then taught bacteriology at Indiana University from 1943 to 1950 and at the University of Illinois from 1950 to 1959. Luria finished his teaching career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught microbiology from 1959 until his death. He served as the editor of the scientific journal Virology and the author of the journal General Virology. He was on the editorial boards for Biological Abstracts and the Journal of Bacteriology from 1950 to 1959. His previously mentioned book won him the National Book Award in 1974. However, his most significant achievement was when he (along with Max Delbrück and Alfred Hershey) won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969 for his studies on bacteriophage and genetic viral mutations.
