Evelyn M. Witkin was an award-winning geneticist whose discoveries about how DNA repairs itself opened the door to advances in cancer treatment.
- Died: July 8, 2023 (Who else died on July 8?)
- Details of death: Died in Plainsboro, New Jersey, of complications from a fall at the age of 102.
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Evelyn M. Witkin’s legacy
Witkin began her journey into pioneering genetics research in the 1940s, both at the dawn of the industry and during a time when women in the field were exceedingly rare. She worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York in 1944, helping generate mutations in E. coli cultures. This sparked an interest in genetics that would remain with Witkin for the rest of her life.
Witkin earned her PhD in 1947 from Columbia University, where she had the opportunity to work under the guidance of prominent geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky. Her research focused on the effects of radiation and the mechanisms that bacteria employ to repair damaged DNA.
One of Witkin’s most significant contributions to the field was her discovery of the SOS response in bacteria. She found that when exposed to DNA-damaging agents such as ultraviolet (UV) radiation, certain bacteria activate a set of genes that aid in DNA repair. This discovery revolutionized scientists’ understanding of DNA repair mechanisms and has been vital in illuminating the molecular basis of cancer and aging. Witkins would pursue this field of study until her retirement in 1991.
During her career, she taught and studied at Downstate Medical Center at the State University of New York, and at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Witkins became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1977. She was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Microbiology. She earned the 2000 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, received the National Medal of Science in 2002, and in 2015, she and fellow geneticist Stephen J. Elledge won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the highest honor in the medical sciences after the Nobel Prize. That same year, she won the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences.
Tributes to Evelyn M. Witkin
Full obituary: The New York Times
