Guido Pontecorvo ForMemRS

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 (29 November 1907, Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

, Italy – 25 September 1999) was an Italian-born geneticist

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

.

Career

He fled to Britain in 1938.

• Institute of Animal Genetics, University of Edinburgh
  University of Edinburgh
  The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
  
  , 1938-40 and 1944-45
• Department of Zoology, University of Glasgow
  University of Glasgow
  The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
  
  , 1941-44
• Dept of Genetics, University of Glasgow, 1945-68 (Professor 1956-68)
• Honorary Director, MRC Unit of Cell Genetics, 1966-68
• Member of research staff, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, 1968-75
• Honorary Consultant Geneticist, ICRF, 1975-80

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 in 1955.

He was one of eight children. He was a brother to Gillo Pontecorvo

Gillo Pontecorvo

Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker. He worked as a film director for more than a decade before his best known film La battaglia di Algeri was released...

 and Bruno Pontecorvo

Bruno Pontecorvo

Bruno Pontecorvo was an Italian-born nuclear physicist, an early assistant of Enrico Fermi and then the author of numerous studies in high energy physics, especially on neutrinos. According to Oleg Gordievsky and Pavel Sudoplatov , Pontecorvo was also a Soviet agent...

.

Legacy

The current genetics building at the University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

 is named in honour of Guido Pontecorvo. The Pontecorvo Building is part of the Anderson College complex located on Dumbarton Road in the West End of Glasgow. It houses one of the few working Paternoster

Paternoster

A paternoster or paternoster lift is a passenger elevator which consists of a chain of open compartments that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building without stopping. Passengers can step on or off at any floor they like...

elevators in the UK.

He has also lent his name to the annual Pontecorvo award, presented to the most promising genetics student in the department.

Past Winners:

2003 - Robert Irving

2004 - John Rowell

2009 - Stuart Meiklejohn

2010 - Angela Wilson