Herman Joseph Muller (1890-1967) was an American biologist and geneticist, member of the US National Academy of Sciences (1931), foreign member of the Royal Society of London (1953), and corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1933-1949, since 1990). He was a very extraordinary student and a man with radical political views, but he was awarded a scholarship to Columbia University, a leading center for genetic research. After graduating with honors (1910), he received a Master of Science degree in physiology the following year, writing a paper on the transmission of nerve impulses.
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Throughout 1926, he made a number of sensational discoveries in which he established a clear pattern between radiation and lethal mutations. He made a presentation entitled "Problems of Genetic Modification," which caused a sensation in the press. He studied radiation genetics and warned radiologists about the effects of X-rays.
In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of mutations caused by X-rays, which increased the world's concern about the consequences of nuclear war after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The scientist actively joined the anti-war movement.
One of the 11 scientists who signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955), which preceded the creation of the Pugwash Movement, he supported the petition created by Linus Pauling, which called for a moratorium on nuclear weapons (1958).
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