Name Edward Garber | ||
Edward Garber "The Tax Man" - 25 Year Anniversary
Edward Garber (1918–2004) was an American geneticist.
Contents
Biography
Garber was born into a poor family in 1918 in Manhattan, New York and died on 9 October 2004 in the Palliative Care Center and Hospice of the North Shore in Skokie, Illinois at age of 86 because of kidney failure. Garber was raised in cold water flat in the Palliative Care Center and Hospice of the North Shore in Skokie, Illinois at age of 86 because of kidney failure. he was raised in cold water flat in Manhattan's Lower East Side. He was admitted to Townsend Harris High School, a selective public school, and received a New York state grant with partial tuition waiver to study in Cornell University, graduating in 1940 with a bachelor's degree in Botany. He earned his MS in genetics in 1942, and a doctorate in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley under the GI Bill in 1949. He was awarded the John Belling Prize for his dissertation on the genetics of Sorghum which is the first known publication from him. He married Rosaile Kirshtein, had two daughters Martha and Jane, son Joel, and two grandchildren, Beckey and Matt.
He served in the Army during World War II and stationed in Charleston, South Carolina. Until his realization that he wanted to be an academician, he worked for several years at office of Naval Research in Oakland.
Area of study
Garber started his career in 1953 as faculty of the Department of Botany, University of Chicago; he got mandatory retirement in 1988 but stayed on Professor emeritus of ecology and evolution8. During his career, he made significant contribution in plant genetics based on the study of higher plants (Sorghum, Peas, Collinsia), lower plants (algae, liverworts), animals (Mice, Carp, Homo sapiens), bacteria (Erwinia, Pseudomonas, Xanthomonas) and fungi (Aspergillus, Colletotrichum, Fusarium, Penicillium, Microbotrytum). But he made mold system as his favorite model and spent his three decades almost working on filamentous fungi. As a plant geneticist, he wrote more than 150 papers, books and reviews. While working on office of Naval Research in Oakland, California, he made extensive study on causative agent of Plague i.e. Pateurella pestis (now Yersinia pestis) on variation and resistance to streptomycin in vitro and in vivo and also discovered sex linked gene in mice. In the University of Chicago, he taught genetics, supervised 11 Master's Thesis and 20 PhD dissertation. He supervised the MS and PhD thesis dissertation of mycologist Joan W. Bennett and geneticist Michael L. Baird. He was honored with University of Chicago's Quantrell Award for excellence in teaching in 1982. He also worked with Richard J. Boyajian of University Lab School to develop a human genetics curriculum for Chicago's Public School System and participated in the design of the sickle cell anemia exhibited at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
His major works includes demonstration of power of classical genetics and develop the basis for transmission of genetic systems based on study of genus Collisnia and the smut species (Microbotryum violeceum) formerly Ustilago violacea. From 1960, he focused his study on filamentous fungi, Aspergillus fumigatus, Fusarium oxysporium, Penicillium digitatum, P. expansum and P. italicum, describing the parasexual cycle in them and also analyzing the relationship between nutrition and phytopathogenecity. Also he started use of enzyme electrophoresis as taxonomic and genetic tool for mycological studies. Besides working as plant cytogeneticist, he also made a considerable work on medical science. He along with John W. Rippon, Professor emeritus at the University of Chicago undertook pioneer enzymologic studies in dermatophytes, associated the yield of elastase and collagenase with the more virulent forms of dermatophytes and established that the production of enzymes also correlated with mating types in 1969. He was awarded with gold key award by the Medical and Biological Science Alumni Association in 1992. He with mycologist Mantred Ruddat worked together for more than 30 years and collaborated on about 20 papers.
Garber wrote a text book titled Cytogenetics: An Introduction for McGraw Hill in 1972 and also edited the series Genetic Perspectives in Biology and Medicine for the university of Chicago press in 1985. He was the co-editor in chief of International Journal of Plant Science in 1992-2000. He also spent his spring and two summers at the University of Hebrew in Jerusalem in 1970 on the auspices of the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation where he involved in several projects like study of prawns flourishment on brackish water ponds, breeding hybrid carp, and use of yeast as human food supplement.