Max Delbrück
Max Delbrück | |
|---|---|
| Born | Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück September 4, 1906 |
| Died | March 9, 1981 (aged 74) Pasadena, California, U.S. |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Known for |
|
| Spouse | Mary Bruce |
| Children | 4 |
| Father | Hans Delbrück |
| Relatives | Emmi Bonhoeffer (sister) |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biophysics |
| Institutions | Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry Vanderbilt University Caltech |
| Doctoral advisor | Lise Meitner |
| Doctoral students | Lily Jan, Yuh Nung Jan, Ernst Peter Fischer, Charles M. Steinberg |
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück (German: [maks ˈdɛl.bʁʏk] ⓘ; September 4, 1906 – March 9, 1981) was a German–American biophysicist who participated in launching the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical scientists' interest into biology, especially as to basic research to physically explain genes, mysterious at the time. Formed in 1945 and led by Delbrück along with Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey, the Phage Group made substantial headway unraveling important aspects of genetics. The three shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses". He was the first physicist to predict what is now called Delbrück scattering.