Boris Magasanik
Boris Magasanik | |
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Born | MIT | December 19, 1919
Doctoral advisor | Erwin Chargaff |
Boris Magasanik (December 19, 1919 – December 25, 2013) was a
Early life and education
Magasanik was born in
Magasanik began graduate education at Pennsylvania State University, but was interrupted by the United States' entry into World War II. As Magasanik later recalled, other recent chemistry graduates of the period were able to find jobs in the defense industry, but as he was not yet eligible for American citizenship, he was instead drafted into the army and ultimately spent four years serving as a medical technician.[2]
After leaving the army Magasanik returned to Ph.D. studies, this time at Columbia University under the direction of Erwin Chargaff. Magasanik received his Ph.D. in 1948. Asked years later to write a brief autobiography about his life in science, Magasanik described his early life as "almost entirely determined by the political events of the period between the two world wars and by World War II."[2]
Academic career
Magasanik was recruited to a position at Harvard Medical School by J. Howard Mueller and began his faculty career there in 1949, advancing to a tenured position in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology in 1958. During this period he spent a sabbatical at the Pasteur Institute with Jacques Monod thanks to a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1960, Magasanik was recruited from Harvard to MIT by noted microbiologist Salvador Luria, who sought to raise the MIT Department of Biology's profile in molecular biology.[1][3][2]
In 1967, Magasanik became the head of the Department of Biology, a position in which he served until 1977. His leadership during this period, especially in decision-making about new faculty hires, has been widely cited as contributing to the success of the department in the molecular biology field.[1][3]
Magasanik became the Jacques Monod Professor of Biology in 1977.[4][5] After being succeeded by
In 1969, Magasanik became a member of the
Teaching
Magasanik was known as a skilled and committed educator of
Personal life
Magasanik met his first wife, Adele Karp, when both were graduate students at Columbia; they were married in 1949. Karp was also a researcher at Harvard and later worked with Magasanik at MIT, though she retired from science in the early 1960s to care for her elderly mother. The couple became avid
References
- ^ a b c d Clark, Andrew (3 January 2014). "Biologist Boris Magasanik dies at 94". MIT News. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
- ^ PMID 7826001.
- ^ a b c d Reisz, Matthew (16 January 2014). "Boris Magasanik, 1919–2013". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
- ^ a b Center for Oral History. "Boris Magasanik". Science History Institute.
- ^ Schlesinger, Sondra (1995). Boris Magasanik, Transcript of an interview Conducted by Sondra Schlesinger In three sessions between 1993 and 1995 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: Chemical Heritage Foundation.
- ^ a b c Lawrence, J.M. (2 February 2014). "Boris Magasanik, 94; pioneer in molecular biology at MIT". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 25 October 2015.