View source for Milislav Demerec

{{Short description|Croatian-American geneticist (1895–1966)}}
{{refimprove|date=February 2013}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name                    = Milislav Demerec
| birth_date              = {{Birth date|1895|1|11|mf=y}}
| birth_place             = [[Hrvatska Kostajnica|Kostajnica]], [[Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia]], [[Austria-Hungary]]
| death_date              = {{Death date and age|1966|4|12|1895|1|11|mf=y}}
| death_place             =
| education = College of Agriculture, [[Križevci]], Croatia; College of Agriculture, [[Grignon, Côte-d'Or|Grignon]], France; [[Cornell University]] (Ph.D. 1923)
| field                  = Genetics
<!--| awards = [[National Academy of Sciences]], [[American Philosophical Society]]-->
| work_institution        = Križevci Experiment Station; [[Carnegie Institution of Washington]];  [[Brookhaven National Laboratory]]; [[Long Island University]]
| doctoral_advisor        = [[Rollins A. Emerson]]
| academic_advisors =  C. W. Metz
| known_for               = Genetics of the plant ''Delphinium'' and the fruit fly ''Drosophila virilis''
}}
'''Milislav Demerec''' (January 11, 1895&nbsp;– April 12, 1966) was a [[Croats|Croatian]]-[[United States|American]] [[geneticist]], and the director of the Department of Genetics, Carnegie Institution of Washington [CIW], now [[Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory]] (CSHL) from 1941 to 1960, recruiting [[Barbara McClintock]] and [[Alfred Hershey]].

Demerec was born and raised in [[Hrvatska Kostajnica|Kostajnica]] (then [[Austria-Hungary]], now [[Croatia]]). He attended College of Agriculture in [[Križevci, Croatia|Križevci]], graduating in 1916. He worked at Krizevci Experiment Station, and then attended the College of Agriculture in [[Grignon, Côte-d'Or|Grignon]], [[France]] after [[World War I]]. He emigrated to the United States for graduate studies in 1919.

In 1919 he started his [[PhD]] at [[Cornell University]], his work was on [[maize]] [[genetics]] and was supervised by [[Rollins A. Emerson]]. He completed his PhD in 1923 and took up a research position at the [[Carnegie Institution of Washington]]'s [CIW] Department of Genetics, now [[Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory]]. He completed work from his PhD, showing that ten different [[alleles]] could cause [[albinism]] in [[maize]] kernels, then on the advice of [[C. W. Metz]] he began work on the genetics of the plant ''[[Delphinium]]'' and the [[Drosophilidae|fruit fly]] ''Drosophila virilis'' studying [[mosaicism]].

He became a prominent ''[[Drosophila melanogaster|Drosophila]]'' researcher and established the ''Drosophila Information Service'' newsletter in 1934 with [[Calvin Bridges]]. In 1936 he was made the assistant directory of the Department of Genetics, and the acting director in 1941 following the retirement of [[Albert Blakeslee]].  That year, he was also made director of the Biological Laboratory of the Long Island Biological Association making him the director of both Cold Spring Harbor laboratories, by 1943.

After overcoming opposition from [[Thomas Hunt Morgan]], Demerec oversaw the completion of much of the late Calvin Bridges’s work. Demerec appointed [[Katherine Brehme Warren]] to complete ''The Mutants of Drosophila melanogaster'' (1944) and the book became a classic in the field.<ref>"Cold Spring Harbor Summers," Calvin Blackman Bridges, Unconventional Geneticist (1889–1938) (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library and Archives, 2013),  http://library.cshl.edu/exhibits/bridges/_pages/page6_CSHL.html (accessed 8 February 2015).</ref>

A young [[Esther M. Zimmer]], who worked with [[Alexander Hollaender]] at the U. S. Public Health Service (Bethesda, MD), published with Dr. Hollaender, [[Eva Sansome]] and Demerec in the very early field of x-ray- and UV-induced mutations.<ref>[[Alexander Hollaender|Hollaender, A.]], [[Eva Sansome|Sansome E. R.]], [[Esther M. Zimmer|Zimmer, E.]], Demerec, M., April 1945, "Quantitative Irradiation Experiments with Neurospora crassa. II. Ultraviolet Irradiation", ''American Journal of Botany'' 32(4):226–235; see http://www.estherlederberg.com/Papers.html</ref>  Later on, Esther M. Zimmer (now [[Esther Lederberg]]) became one of the most influential founders of bacterial and bacteriophage ([[Lambda]]) genetics.

In the 1940s the direction of Demerec's research changed to the genetics of [[bacteria]] and their [[bacteriophage|viruses]] after a symposium given by [[Max Delbrück]]. During [[World War II]] he used his knowledge of bacterial genetics to increase the yield from the ''[[Penicillium]]''. Following the war he continued to work on bacterial genetics and the problem of [[antibiotic resistance]] in ''[[E. coli]]'', ''[[Salmonella]]'', and ''[[Staphylococcus]]''.  In 1946 he was elected to the [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]], and in 1947 became the founding editor of ''Advances in Genetics'', the first journal to review the finding of modern genetics. In the 1950s he served on the genetics panel of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Biological Effects of Atomic [[Radiation]]. In 1952 he was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]].

Following his retirement from CSHL, he took a position at the [[Brookhaven National Laboratory]], working there until 1965. In 1966 he served briefly as research professor at [[Long Island University]], until he died on April 12, 1966.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Comfort N. C.  Demerec, Milislav. ''American National Biography Online Feb. 2000''
*[http://library.cshl.edu/sp/scientists/milislav_demerec/demerec_biography.html Milislav Demerec Biography, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory]
*Kass, L. B. and Chomet, P. 2009.  Barbara McClintock, Pgs.  17–52, in J. Bennetzen and S. Hake, Editors, Handbook of Maize: Genetics and Genomics. Springer.
*Kass, Lee B. 2005b. Missouri compromise: tenure or freedom.  New evidence clarifies why Barbara McClintock left Academe.  Maize Genetics Cooperation Newsletter 79: 52–71. Available, online, April 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20110717183510/http://www.agron.missouri.edu/mnl/79/05kass.htm
*Hollaender, A., Sansome E. R., Zimmer, E., Demerec, M., April 1945, "Quantitative Irradiation Experiments with Neurospora crassa. II. Ultraviolet Irradiation", American Journal of Botany 32(4):226–235; see http://www.estherlederberg.com/Papers.html

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110725014334/http://amphilsoc.org/mole/view?docId=ead%2FMss.B.D394-ead.xml Milislav Demerec Papers, American Philosophical Society]
*[http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/demerec-milislav.pdf National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir]

{{Presidents of the American Society of Naturalists}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Demerec, Milislav}}
[[Category:1895 births]]
[[Category:1966 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Hrvatska Kostajnica]]
[[Category:Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:American geneticists]]
[[Category:Yugoslav emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Brookhaven National Laboratory staff]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Place of death missing]]
[[Category:Presidents of the American Society of Naturalists]]