The American scientist, educator, and administrator George Wells Beadle (1903-1989) demonstrated the role of genes in the control of biochemical reactions in living organisms.

George Beadle was born on October 22, 1903, in Wahoo, Nebraska. He obtained an undergraduate degree in biology in 1926 and a master's degree in 1927 from the University of Nebraska, where he developed a specific interest in genetics, especially that of corn. Beadle continued graduate study at Cornell University under the joint guidance of geneticist R. A. Emerson and cytologist L. W. Sharp during a period when studies combining the methods of cytology and genetics were most profitable. After receiving a doctorate in 1931, he joined the California Institute of Technology, first as a fellow of the National Research Council and then, until 1936, as an instructor of biology. He later served Harvard University as an assistant professor of biology (1936-1937) and Stanford University as a professor of biology...