Joseph Gall posthumously receives Golden Goose Award

Washington, DC—Legendary Carnegie Science biologist Joseph Gall was posthumously awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Golden Goose Award this week. This annual prize honors federally funded analysis of “seemingly obscure” and even “silly sounding” topics that led to main breakthroughs. It was designed to focus on sudden impacts of curiosity-driven analysis.  

“The Golden Goose awardees definitively demonstrate that federally funded American science continues to deliver for all of us,” mentioned Sudip S. Parikh, chief govt officer at AAAS and govt writer of the Science household of journals. “These discoveries show that American science is anything but stagnant. AAAS and the American people will continue to support federal investment in research that can make us healthier, safer, and stronger.”

Gall, who joined Carnegie in 1983, was acknowledged for his work on “nature’s oddities,” together with pond scum and frog egg cells which “knowledgeable illness diagnostics” in addition to his mentorship of award-winning scientists.

His lifelong fascination with the pure world—significantly with creatures that decision ponds and swamps dwelling—gave Gall what to his colleagues typically appeared like a sixth sense for experiment design. He had a capability to pick out the proper organism for pursuing every particular person analysis query.

Growing up, he spent his summers on a farm in Northern Virginia the place he collected bugs. Over time, this ardour grew from do-it-yourself butterfly nets equipped by his mom to the reward of a microscope. Gall’s ardour for sampling and learning pondwater didn’t diminish with age. It was a pastime he shared with many in his life, from members of the family for mentees.  

“Joe was the ideal model of a scientist—someone whose natural curiosity blossomed into a brilliant professional career,” mentioned Carnegie Science President John Mulchaey. “His knowledge gathering process was lifelong and the wealth of his intelligence and depth of his skills enabled him to forever change how biology research is done.”

Early in his profession, Gall revolutionized our understanding of how chromosomes are organized by exhibiting that almost all chromosomes comprise a single DNA molecule stretching from finish to finish.

Working with frog egg cells, Gall and Mary Lou Pardue developed a strong approach known as in situ hybridization, which permits researchers to find and map genes on this chromosomal DNA. It was among the many first strategies to attach particular person nucleic acid sequences with the genome as an entire and helped usher within the trendy genomic analysis period. 

Later, his work with Elizabeth Blackburn revealed the construction of telomeres, a repetitive section of DNA on the finish of every chromosome, which protects the genetic materials from injury and ensures it’s absolutely copied previous to cell division. This revolutionary discovery was made working with Gall’s urged analysis organism, a single-celled “pond scum” known as Tetrahymena.

In addition to his main contributions to our understanding of chromosomes and the mobile nucleus, AAAS honored Gall for his legacy of championing girls in science in an period the place that was uncommon.

“For many decades, Joe’s lab was known as one of the few places where women would be taken seriously and not sidelined, receiving professional training that would launch them into biology research careers,” mentioned Biosphere Sciences and Engineering Interim Director Yixian Zheng, a longtime colleague of Gall’s.