1889-1938

American geneticist who worked in Thomas Hunt Morgan's famous "fly room" at Columbia University. Using mutants of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, Bridges helped establish the chromosome theory of genetics. Bridges exploited the giant salivary gland chromosomes of the fruit fly to demonstrate a relationship between specific bands on the chromosomes and the linear sequence of genes on linkage maps. His recognition of chromosome banding was one of the key events in the development of modern cytogenetics.