Allan Wilson

Allan Charles Wilson ( born October 18, 1934 in Ngaruawahia, New Zealand, † July 21, 1991 in Seattle ) was a New Zealand biochemist. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a pioneer in the application of molecular biological methods in evolutionary research, particularly in humans.

Life

Wilson grew up on the dairy farm of his parents in Pukekohe 20 miles south Auckland. He went to Auckland to school and studied at the University of Otago biochemistry and zoology with a bachelor 's degree in 1955 and at Washington State University with a master's degree in zoology in 1957. He was in 1961 a PhD from the University of Berkeley in biochemistry at Arthur Pardee ( biosynthesis of flavin in bacteria). As a post - graduate student, he worked at Nathan O. Kaplan at Brandeis University. From 1964 he was at Berkeley with a full Professor of Biochemistry from 1972. He died of leukemia.

He has been a visiting scientist at Harvard, St. Louis, Kansas, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Israel and Kenya.

Work

Wilson attracted attention and was still highly controversial during his lifetime for his work on molecular evolution in humans. His first work on " molecular clocks " (number of mutations ) as the time scale for human evolution, he published from 1967 with Vincent Sarich. He came from the comparison of the genetic material of humans and chimpanzees - like he found 99% were identical - to the conclusion that the earliest cleavage lagged five million years, much shorter than then usual estimates of anthropologists. His laboratory extended this research into the evolution of many other creatures from (later on Ancient DNA research) and has always been at the forefront of research in introduction of new techniques ( recombinant DNA techniques, polymerase chain reaction, etc.). At the same time, the methods developed there over his students spread around the world.

The early 1980s was followed by a second sensational publication about the origin of humans (Homo sapiens) 200,000 years ago in Africa (African Eve ). This emerged after Wilson from the study of mitochondrial DNA from different human races. Also, this initially at the anthropologists rejected because they. Idea of a simultaneous development in several parts of the world and from different Homonidenlinien ( in Europe from the Neanderthals, Homo erectus in Asia ) disagreed However, the hypothesis of the origin in Africa and the non- relationship of homo sapiens to Neanderthals and Homo erectus prevailed later.

Honors, editorship, Memberships

He was Guggenheim Fellow (1972) and MacArthur Fellow (1986). He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Founded in 2002, Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution in New Zealand is named in his honor.

Wilson was co-editor of the Journal of Molecular Evolution.

Writings

• The molecular basis of evolution, Scientific American, October 1985
• RL Cann: The recent African genesis of humans, Scientific American, April 1992
• With RLCann, M.Stoneking Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution, Nature 325, 1987, pp. 31-36.