Molecular Biologist Franklin Stahl Dies at 95

Franklin Stahl, a molecular biologist and geneticist, passed away at age 95 at his home in Eugene, Oregon, on April 2, 2025. The news, along with the cause of his death, was not publicized until recently. Stahl died from congestive heart failure, his son Andy shared with The New York Times.

Stahl, who was an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Oregon at the time of his death, was best known for an experiment which he devised and executed with Matthew Meselson, a geneticist who is now an emeritus professor of the natural sciences at Harvard University.¹ The experiment, now widely referred to as “the most beautiful experiment” in biology, provided concrete evidence for James Watson and Francis Crick’s theory on DNA’s semiconservative replication.

Stahl was born in Needham, Massachusetts in 1929. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Harvard University in 1951, then enrolled at the University of Rochester to pursue a doctoral degree. As an undergraduate student, Stahl didn’t enjoy his genetics course, he confided at an interview at his alma mater. But a bacteriophage and bacterial genetics course that he took at Cold Spring Harbor as a doctoral student, taught by August “Gus” Doermann, changed his mind. Stahl joined Doermann’s laboratory, where he completed his doctoral work on the T4 bacteriophage. To complete his final graduation requirements, Stahl took a physiology course at Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory, where he met Watson and Meselson. It was around this time that he collaborated with the latter to conduct the Meselson-Stahl experiment.

After his doctoral studies, Stahl worked at the California Institute of Technology, then at the University of Missouri, before permanently relocating to Eugene and starting his own lab at the University of Oregon.

During the course of his career, Stahl authored 127 articles and two books, “The Mechanics of Inheritance” and "Genetic Recombination: Thinking About It in Phage and Fungi." He was awarded two Guggenheim fellowships, a MacArthur fellowship and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal. Stahl is survived by his son Andy, daughter Emily Morgan, and eight grandchildren.