author
C. Little
A pioneering American geneticist and science administrator, this writer helped shape modern laboratory mouse research and founded one of the world’s best-known biomedical research centers. His work sits at the crossroads of genetics, cancer research, and the history of twentieth-century science.
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About the author
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1888, Clarence Cook Little studied at Harvard University, where he earned degrees in zoology and developed an early interest in genetics. He went on to become an influential researcher and academic leader during a period when genetics was rapidly changing how scientists understood heredity and disease.
Little is especially remembered for his role in establishing The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, a major center for biomedical research. He also served as president of the University of Michigan and later worked in cancer research and scientific administration. His writing reflected his lifelong interest in heredity, medicine, and the uses of experimental research.
His legacy is complex. Alongside important contributions to genetics and laboratory science, he was also associated with eugenics and later worked with tobacco-industry research efforts. That mix of scientific achievement and controversy makes him a notable figure for readers interested not only in science, but in how scientific ideas are shaped by the values and institutions of their time.