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The article profiles scientist Alfred Henry Sturtevant. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Sturtevant's scientific contributions to the development of present-day genetic concepts. On looking back on his papers, a biologist is often liable to feel that he could have done the work very much better 20 years later. Because this is not so for Sturtevant's most important papers, they are classics, which any student of genetics may read with profit, and are rightly reprinted. And students may be told tven if you don't discover anything as important as Sturtevant did, at least try to express yourself as clearly.

The purpose of this review is threefold: (a) to provide some of the background work and ideas on phage λ to enable the nonspecialist to follow current studies on λ; (b) to present a usable overview of λ—what is probably true, what may be true, and what remains to be determined or discovered; (c) to present general features of λ as an organism under molecular control—the features that make λ interesting and amenable to study. I feel that control of gene expression and cellular development in higher organisms will not simply be a rehash of λ control circuits. In fact different temperate phages such as P2, P1, and P22 have evolved mechanisms of gene control with varying differences from λ. I do, however, feel that the development of ideas concerning gene control in phages such as λ, and the rigor with which they have been put to test, make λ an intellectual model to emulate in studies of control of gene expression. This is a highly personalized account of λ, with accent on genetic aspects. As a complement, I suggest reading other papers with more emphasis on biochemical aspects. I have attempted to give credit to the appropriate workers who helped me formulate a view of λ. In many cases, these ideas developed in a number of laboratories in parallel, with the full picture being a fusion of different experiments. Apologies are offered in advance for leaving people out. In addition, I have tried to cite the most recent work on different topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a tribute to Hermann Joseph Muller and his contributions to genetics. Profound interest in the properties of the genes as the initiator and organizer of life; Papers authored on the idea of the genes as the basis of life; Properties of the gene material drawing the grandiose picture of evolution by mutation.