1. T. H. Morgan Lexington Native UK Alumni Nobel Prize Winne
Linkage and Gene Maps
T. H. Morgan
Lexington Native
UK Alumni
Nobel Prize Winne

2. Thomas Hunt Morgan
Lexingtonian Thomas Hunt Morgan worked on the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
Morgan showed that Mendel’s principles applied to animals and not just pea plants.
He was the first Kentuckian (and only… for now) to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
He was awarded this for determining that some traits were sex-linked and found on sex chromosomes. We’ll discuss this more later

3. T. H. Morgan He also discovered the principle of linkage.
He discovered that each chromosomes is a set of linked genes.
He found that chromosomes assort independently, not individual genes.

4. Crossing Over and Gene Maps
Crossing over occasionally separates linked genes and produces new combinations of alleles.
This is important for genetic diversity.

5. Alfred Sturtevant
Alfred Sturtevant, a student in Morgan’s lab found that the further two genes are apart, the less likely they are to be inherited together.

6. Gene Maps
Sturtevant created a gene map, which shows the relative location of genes on a chromosome.
The map units are now called centimorgans (cM) in honor of T. H. Morgan

7. Crossing Over, Mutations, and Genetic Diversity
Very rare genetic mutation, a yellow Northern Carindal