Max Delbrück

max Delbrück (September 4th 1906 - March 9th 1981) was a German-American biophysicist, Co-prize winner with Alfred Hershey and El Salvador Luria of the Nobel Prize of physiology or medicine in 1969.

Childhood and beginning of its career in Germany

Delbrück was born with Berlin in Germany. His/her father, Hans Delbrück, was a Historien professor of history to the Université Humboldt of Berlin, and his/her mother was a grand-daughter of the chemist Justus von Liebig.

Delbrück studies the Astrophysique, then the Theoretical physics with the Université of Göttingen. After obtaining its doctorate in 1930, he travels to the the United Kingdom, the Denmark and in Suisse and at the time of meeting Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr to which it is interested in the Biologie. On its return to Berlin in 1932, it obtains a station of assistant of Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn with the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute. This institute, which does not depend on the state, keeps a certain independence in spite of the rise of the Nazism what enables him to meet researchers of varied nationalities.

Its scientific career

In 1937, it leaves to the the United States to off continue its work of biology at the department biology of the California Institute Technology thanks to a purse of the Fondation Rockefeller. He works on the Génétique and is interested in the Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly). During this period in Caltech, it is also interested in the Bactérie S and their Virus (Bactériophage S). In 1939, he is joint author with E.L. Elect of a publication entitled The Growth off Bacteriophage in which they show that the viruses are duplicated in a stage, rather than in an exponential way as do it the cellular organizations .

In 1941, he marries Mary Bruce, with which he will have four children. His/her brother Justus Delbrück, his sister Emmi Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law Klaus Bonhoeffer (brother of the theologist Dietrich Bonhoeffer) make party of the resistance against the mode Nazi. Klaus and Dietrich Bonhoeffer will be both carried out in the last days of the mode hitlérien.

During the Second world war, max Delbrück remains with the USA and sign physics with the Université Vanderbilt of Nashville where it also continues its work of genetics. In 1942, it shows with El Salvador Luria which the resistance which develops of the bacteria with the infections by the viruses is not due to an adaptation of the bacteria but to random changes. This work is also important for the made use of mathematics like tool of quantitative prediction.

Following this research, max Delbrück, Alfred Hershey and El Salvador Luria obtain the Nobel Prize of physiology or medicine in 1969.

From 1950, Delbrück applies its methods biophysics to questions of Physiologie. It also creates an institute of molecular Génétique with the Université of Cologne.

Its heritage

Delbrück will have been one of the most influential scientists of the twentieth century for the emergence of physics in the middle of biology. Did its ideas on the physical bases of the life stimulate Erwin Schrödinger for the writing of its book What Is Life? . This book will have a great influence on Francis Crick, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins which will obtain the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the double helix of DNA. During years 1940, it sets up a course of genetics of the bacteriophage at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to attract scientists towards this research field. Its efforts to promote the study of the genetics through that of the virus infecting the bacteria will have been very important for the development of the Molecular biology.

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