Robert Metzenberg

Robert Lee Metzenberg (June 11, 1930 – July 15, 2007) was an American geneticist known for his work on genetic regulation and metabolism with Neurospora crassa.

Education and early life Robert Lee Metzenberg was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. In 1951 Metzenberg graduated from Pomona College in California where he had specialised in chemistry with physics and biology as minor subjects. He then studied at the California Institute of Technology and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1955. 1951 and 1955, he earned a PhD at California Institute of Technology in the Division of Biological Sciences supervised by Herschel K. Mitchell. During this time he met and was influenced by several geneticists including George Beadle, Alfred Sturtevant, Herschel K. Mitchell and Max Delbrück. This led to the application of molecular genetic technologies to advance understanding of Neurospora. It became the first filamentous fungus to have a fully sequenced genome. His research group characterised the mating-type A allele of N. crassa.

Awards and honors He was awarded the Thomas Hunt Morgan Award from Caltech in 1954 and the American Cancer Society and John and Mary Markle postdoctoral awards during his postdoctoral research. He received a U.S. Public Health Service Research Career Development Award for the period 1963–1973. He was president of the Genetics Society of America in 1990 and elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 1996. In 2005 he was awarded the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal by the Genetics Society of America for his lifetimes achievements.

Personal life He met Helene Fox from California, while he was studying for his Ph.D. They married in 1954.