Blakeslee, Albert Francis
Blakeslee, Albert Francis,
1874–1954, American botanist, b. Genesee, New York. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard (1904) and was a member of the faculty until 1907. After several years as professor at Connecticut Agricultural College (now the Univ. of Connecticut), he joined the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington at Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., and later served as its director (1936–41). In 1943 he became director of the Smith College Genetics Experiment Station. From his earliest research, the discovery of sexual reproduction in bread molds, his contributions to botany and genetics were of far-reaching significance. His study of the inheritance and geographical distribution of the jimson weed, Datura, provided important information concerning chromosome behavior, genic balance, and species evolution. He introduced the use of the alkaloid colchicine to increase the number of chromosomes in the plant cell.Blakeslee, Albert Francis
Born Nov. 9, 1874, in Geneseo, N. Y.; died Nov. 16,1954, in Northampton, Mass. American botanist and geneticist.
Blakeslee graduated from Wesleyan University in 1896. He served as director of the Genetics Experiment Station at Smith College in Northampton from 1943. His fundamental works involved the study of gene balance, chromosomal mutations, and species formation on a new (for geneticists) plant object—the thorn apple (Datura stramonium). In 1937, in collaboration with O. T. Avery, he discovered a method for producing polyploidic mutations in plants by the action upon them of the alkaloid colchicine. He was a pioneer in the method of cultivating plant embryos.
A. E. GAISINOVICH