George Harrison Shull

George Harrison Shull
Born(1874-04-15)April 15, 1874
Clark County, Ohio, US
Died28 September 1954(1954-09-28) (aged 80)
Princeton, New Jersey, US
Alma materUniversity of Chicago
AwardsPublic Welfare Medal (1948)
Scientific career
Fieldsgenetics
Author abbrev. (botany)Shull

George Harrison Shull (April 15, 1874 – September 28, 1954) was an American plant geneticist[1] and the younger brother of botanical illustrator and plant breeder J. Marion Shull. He was born on a farm in Clark County, Ohio, graduated from Antioch College in 1901 and from the University of Chicago (Ph.D.) in 1904, served as botanical expert to the Bureau of Plant Industry in 1903–04, and thenceforth was a botanical investigator of the Carnegie Institution at the Station for Experimental Evolution, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., giving special attention to the results of Luther Burbank's work.

Shull played an important role in the development of hybrid maize (in the USA, popularly 'corn') which had great impact upon global agriculture. As a geneticist, Shull worked with maize plants. He was interested in pure breeds not for their economic value but for his experiments in genetics. He produced maize breeds that bred true and then crossed these strains. The hybrid offspring of the sickly pure breeds were vigorous and predictable.

In short, an ideal economic maize resulted from a project motivated purely to advance science.[2] For his work on maize, Shull was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1948.[3] He was also elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.[4]

He also described heterosis in maize in 1908 (the term heterosis was coined by Shull in 1914) and made a number of other key discoveries in the emerging field of genetics. Shull was the founder of the scientific journal Genetics.

He was called George in distinction from his son Harrison Shull (1923–2003), also a distinguished scientist, specializing in the quantum mechanics of small-molecule electronic spectra.[5]

  1. ^ "SHULL, George Harrison". The International Who's Who in the World. 1912. p. 953.
  2. ^ Nelson, Richard R. (April 1959). "The Economics of Invention: A Survey of Literature". The Journal of Business. 32 (2). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press: 101–127. doi:10.1086/294247.
  3. ^ "Public Welfare Award". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
  4. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-10-05.
  5. ^ McClure, Donald; Kasha, Michael (2006). Harrison Shull. Biographical Memoirs. Vol. 87. National Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 332–398. doi:10.17226/11522. ISBN 978-0-309-09579-2.