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Max Delbrück

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Max Delbrück

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Also known as Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück

biophysicist (1906–1981)

OverviewAI-generated

Max Delbrück (1906–1981) was a German and American geneticist, physicist, virologist, and university teacher. Born in Berlin and deceased in Pasadena, he worked in the field of biophysics. His academic career included positions at Vanderbilt University and the California Institute of Technology. He was educated at the University of Göttingen, where his doctoral advisor was Max Born. Delbrück’s doctoral student included Lily Jan.

He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, and the Kimber Genetics Award. Delbrück was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics. He served as a member of the Royal Society, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the French Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His father was Hans Delbrück.

Delbrück spoke German and English. His published works include *Problems of modern biology in relation to atomic physics*, *Desoxyribonucleinsäure, Schlüssel des Lebens*, *Der Aufbau der Atomkerne*, *Statistische Quantenmechanik und Thermodynamik*, and *Über Vererbungschemie*.

Synthesized by Vinony from 37 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Nobel Prize, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Nobel Prize

  • The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine1969

    for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses

    Shared · 1/3 portion

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Max
Gender
male
Citizenship
United States
Place of birth
Berlin
Place of death
Pasadena
Languages spoken
English language
Doctoral advisor
Max Born
Doctoral student
Lily Jan
Field of work
biophysics
Image
Maxdelbrück.jpg
Show 10 more facts
Commons category
Max Delbrück
date of birth
1906-09-04
date of death
1981-03-09
Erdős number
7
name in native language
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück
maintained by WikiProject
WikiProject Mathematics
interested in
genetics
Sources (7)

via Wikidata · CC0

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Encyclopedic overview

Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück ( German: [maks ˈdɛl.bʁʏk] ; September 4, 1906 – March 9, 1981) was a German–American biophysicist who participated in launching the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical scientists' interest into biology, especially as to basic research to physically explain genes, mysterious at the time. Formed in 1945 and led by Delbrück along with Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey, the Phage Group made substantial headway unraveling important aspects of genetics. The three shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses". He was the first physicist to predict what is now called Delbrück scattering.

Early and personal life

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Max Delbrück” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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