Morris Soller (; born 1931) is an American-Israeli research professor in the Department of Genetics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is especially interested in livestock- and crop genetics genetics including trypanotolerance in cattle.
Early life and education
Soller was born in
Manhattan, New York City in 1931.
At the age of 12 he was first inspired to learn about
genetics by reading The Theory of the Gene by Thomas Hunt Morgan.
[ .] While an
undergraduate he read Jay Laurence Lush's
Animal Breeding Plans and learned much from it
and would receive the award named for Lush 50 years later see below.
Soller also learned much from the writings of
Ronald Fisher and
Sewall Wright during this time.
In 1951 he earned a Bachelor's Degree in
Agriculture and then in 1956 both a Master's Degree in Applied Statistics and a Doctorate of Philosophy in
animal breeding from Rutgers University.
He would later return to his birth country for further postdoctoral education at Indiana University and Roosevelt University in
biochemistry.
Research and teaching career
In 1957 he was hired by the
Volcani Center as their senior scientist for animal breeding and by Bar-Ilan University as a
senior lecturer of
Biology and
Genetics.
He moved his family to
Israel where they have lived most of their lives since.
Between 1966 and 1972 Soller was a lecturer at Roosevelt University in the USA.
In 1972 he returned to Israel to lecture at the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of Genetics.
He would eventually become a full professor and emeritus professor in 2000.
He has since continued actively in lecturing and research including
as the Cotswold Visiting Scientist at Iowa State University, at the University of Illinois and elsewhere.
Soller is the originator of quantitative trait locus mapping and marker-assisted selection.
He has especially become known for using these techniques to analyse trypanotolerance in cattle, especially in the N'Dama breed.
Professional recognition
-
1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science elected him a Fellow
-
1999 Awarded the Jay L. Lush Award by the American Dairy Science Association
-
2000 Chosen to give the A. B. Chapman Lecture of the University of Wisconsin
-
2000 Honorary doctorate from Iowa State University
discovery of genetic science"
-
2007 Honorary doctorate from the University of Liege, Belgium
-
2012 Honorary member of the International Society for Animal Genetics
-
2012 The journal Animal Genetics published a special issue in his honor.
Publications
Soller had authored and coauthored over 170 [[peer review]]ed publications, and many book chapters and encyclopedia articles.
- :Popularly cited including by
- : An autobiography Soller was invited to write by Annual Reviews
External links
