Reginald Crundall Punnett: first Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics, Cambridge, 1912 - PubMed (original) (raw)

Reginald Crundall Punnett: first Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics, Cambridge, 1912

A W F Edwards. Genetics. 2012 Sep.

Abstract

R. C. Punnett, the codiscoverer of linkage with W. Bateson in 1904, had the good fortune to be invited to be the first Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge University, United Kingdom, in 1912 when Bateson, for whom it had been intended, declined to leave his new appointment as first Director of the John Innes Horticultural Institute. We here celebrate the centenary of the first professorship dedicated to genetics, outlining Punnett's career and his scientific contributions, with special reference to the discovery of "partial coupling" in the sweet pea (later "linkage") and to the diagram known as Punnett's square. His seeming reluctance as coauthor with Bateson to promote the reduplication hypothesis to explain the statistical evidence for linkage is stressed, as is his relationship with his successor as Arthur Balfour Professor, R. A. Fisher. The background to the establishment of the Professorship is also described.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

R. C. Punnett. Courtesy of the Master and Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Punnett’s square, from the Second Edition of Mendelism (Punnett 1907).

Figure 3

Figure 3

Punnett’s square, from Report III (Bateson et al. 1906b).

Figure 4

Figure 4

Galton’s three-locus square from Report III (Bateson et al. 1906b).

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References

    1. Balfour A. J., 1930. Chapters of Autobiography, edited by Dugdale E. Cassell, London
    1. Bateson, B., 1928 William Bateson, Naturalist. Cambridge University Press. Reprinted in Cambridge Library Collection, Cambridge University Press, 2009, Cambridge/London/New York.
    1. Bateson, W., 1905 Report of the 74th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Cambridge, August 1904. Murray, London.
    1. Bateson, W., 1906 An address on Mendelian heredity and its application to Man. Brain 29: 157–179. Reprinted in Bateson, B. (1928, pp. 181–200)
    1. Bateson, W., 1908 The Methods and Scope of Genetics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/London/New York. Reprinted in Bateson, B. (1928, pp. 317–333)

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