Captivated by Chromosomes

Peering through a microscope since age 14, Joseph Gall, now 89, still sees wonder at the other end.

Written byAnna Azvolinsky

| 9 min read

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JOSEPH GALL
Staff Member, Department of Embryology
Carnegie Institution for Science, Baltimore, Maryland
1983 American Society for Cell Biology E.B. Wilson Medal
2004 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Developmental Biology
2006 Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award in Medical ResearchCOURTESY JOSEPH GALL

Cell biologist Joseph Gall, who was born in 1928, grew up spending lots of time outside, observing and collecting frogs, butterflies, and other insects. “There was no television when I was younger. After school, I roamed around the neighborhood and the nearby woods,” says Gall, now a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Baltimore, Maryland. “My mother used to make me dozens of butterfly nets and made sure I always had science books.” Gall attributes his lifelong interest in science to her. “She was the first person in her family to go to college. This was in the 1920s and was rare for a woman. After college, she immediately married my father, a lawyer, had my older brother, and became a homemaker. ...

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Meet the Author

Anna Azvolinsky
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Anna Azvolinsky received a PhD in molecular biology in November 2008 from Princeton University. Her graduate research focused on a genome-wide analyses of genomic integrity and DNA replication. She did a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and then left academia to pursue science writing. She has been a freelance science writer since 2012, based in New York City.
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