author
Calvin B. (Calvin Blackman) Bridges
1889–1938
A key figure in the early days of genetics, this American scientist helped show how chromosomes carry heredity by studying fruit flies. His careful eye for unusual traits and talent for building experiments made him one of the standout members of Thomas Hunt Morgan’s famous “Fly Room.”
1 Audiobook
Sex-linked Inheritance in Drosophila
by Thomas Hunt Morgan, Calvin B. (Calvin Blackman) Bridges
About the author
Born in Schuyler Falls, New York, in 1889, Calvin Blackman Bridges became one of the important young researchers who helped turn genetics into a modern science. After joining Thomas Hunt Morgan’s laboratory at Columbia University in 1909, he worked with Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly that became central to early genetic research.
Bridges is especially known for helping establish the chromosome theory of heredity and for important work on sex linkage. He was also admired for his remarkable skill at spotting new fruit-fly mutants and for developing the breeding lines that made precise genetic experiments possible. Later, at the California Institute of Technology, he contributed to detailed chromosome mapping, including work with the giant chromosomes found in fruit-fly larvae.
He died in Los Angeles in 1938, just short of his fiftieth birthday. Though less widely known outside science than some of his colleagues, Bridges played a major role in the experiments that shaped twentieth-century genetics.