Meselson Bio and CV

Born May 24, 1930 in Denver, Colorado, Dr. Meselson received the Ph.B. degree from the University of Chicago in 1951 and the Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1957.  He was Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry at CalTech until he joined the Harvard faculty in 1960.

Dr. Meselson has conducted research mainly in molecular genetics. He invented an important ultracentrifugal method for analyzing the densities of giant molecules. He and his colleague Franklin Stahl then used it to show that DNA molecules replicate semi-conservatively in dividing cells.  Subesquently, together with Jean Weigle, Meselson showed that genetic recombination results from the splicing of DNA molecules, and later, with Sydney Brenner and Francois Jacob demonstrated the existence of messenger RNA.  He and his students then demonstrated the enzymatic basis of host-controlled restriction of DNA and predicted and demonstrated the methyl-directed repair of mismatched DNA. His current research is aimed at understanding the mechanism and evolutionary role of what appears to be an atypical form of meiosis.

Dr. Meselson is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the Académie des Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. He has recieved the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology, the Eli Lilly Award in Microbiology and Immunology, the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal of the Genetics Society of America, the Mendel Medal of the U.K. Genetics Society and the Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science and has been awarded honorary degrees from Columbia, University of Chicago, Yale, Princeton, Northwestern, McGill University and Rockefeller University.

Since 1963, Dr. Meselson has had an interest in biological and chemical weapons arms control and defense and has served as a consultant on this subject to numerous government agencies. Together with his late colleague Julian Perry Robinson in the UK, he was co-director of the Sussex Program on CBW Armament and Arms Limitation and co-editor of its quarterly journal, The CBW Conventions Bulletin. Dr. Meselson has served on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the Council of the Smithsonian Institution, the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Advisory Board to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Dr. Meselson organized and implemented three on-site investigations regarding: (i) The military use of herbicides in Viet Nam; (ii)  The 1979 outbreak of anthrax in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk; and (iii)  The allegations of toxin warfare, the so-called “yellow rain” in Laos and Cambodia during 1979-1983.  You can find documents and visual materials resulting from these on-site investigations under Field Investigations.

Biographical articles:

Activist Germ War Foe Matthew Stanley Meselson, New York Times, November 26, 1969

Method and Madness, Armed with Integrity, New York Times, December 18, 1994

Matthew Meselson: A Doule Life, Lasker Foundation, 2004

Explorations in the land of DNA and Beyond, Nature Medicine, Vol. 19 no. 10. October 2004 Lasker Special Achievement in Medical Science Award

Meselson and Stahl: The Art of DNA Replication, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 28, 2004 101 (52) 17895-17896

Matthew Meselson: Pioneering Scientist and International Activist, New York Academy of Sciences Update, March/April 2006, pp 24-25

Matthew Meselson, Wikipedia