Albert Levan

Johan Albert Levan ( born March 8, 1905 in Gothenburg, † 28 March 1998 in Lund ) was a Swedish botanist and geneticist.

Levan described in 1938 the use of colchicine as a mitotic inhibitor. He headed the laboratory, in which Joe Hin Tjio 1956 discovered the correct number of 46 chromosomes of the human genome, and was co-author of Tjios publication.

From 1961 to 1973 was Levan professor of cell biology at the University of Lund, where he led the Cancer Chromosome Laboratory at the Institute of Genetics.

It was in 1967 elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Levan was married to Karin Malmberg. The couple had two children, the geneticist Göran Levan and illustrator Cecilia Torudd.

Publications

• Joe H. Tijo, Albert Levan. The chromosome number of man. In: Hereditas. No. 42, 1956, pp. 1-6.