T. H. Morgan and the Rise of Genetics

Abstract

It is inevitable that insights into the elusive secrets of the protein molecule, which is so integral to life, would lead to speculations about the origins of life on earth. Sidney Walter Fox, for instance, now at Miami University of Ohio, would shortly (1912) argue that a sufficiently hot environment eons ago caused amino acids to form polymers, or long chains of organic molecules linked together—the first step in “manufacturing” a total organism. He has even managed to get proteins to coalesce into quasi-living entities he calls ‘protenoids.’ Polymerization, as it turned out, would have enormously far-reaching practical applications. In 1926, the German Hermann Staudinger of the University of Freiburg synthesized the first plastics, basing this work on his huge knowledge of polymer chemistry. In 1928, building on this work, the German scientists Paul Diels and Kurt Alder clarified the so-called Diels-Alder reaction, which allowed for rapid chemical combining of atoms into molecules. Ultimately, it turned out that this reaction led to a consummately efficient way of making plastics and virtually started the plastics industry all by itself.