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Max Delbruck Facts & Worksheets

Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German–American biophysicist. He was a founder of the field of molecular biology.

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Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German–American biophysicist. He was a founder of the field of molecular biology. Additionally, Delbrück was a 1969 Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine with Hershey and Luria “for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses“.

See the fact file below for more information on the Max Delbruck or alternatively, you can download our 21-page Max Delbruck worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE

  • Max Delbrück was born on September 4, 1906 in Berlin, German Empire. He was the youngest of seven children.
  • His mother was the granddaughter of Justus von Liebig, an eminent chemist. His father, Hans Delbrück, worked as professor and taught history at the University of Berlin.
  • Delbrück left Nazi Germany for America in 1937, first California, then Tennessee.
  • In 1945, he became a US citizen.
  • In 1941, he married Mary Bruce and had four children.
  • Max’s brother Justus, a lawyer, and his sister Emmi Bonhoeffer, were both active in opposing Nazism, along with his brothers-in-law Klaus Bonhoeffer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
  • Found guilty by the People’s Court for being part of the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, Dietrich and Klaus were executed in 1945 by the RSHA. Justus died in Soviet custody the same year.
  • Max grew up in a suburb of Berlin, Grunewald. It was populated by moderately affluent members of the academic, professional, and merchant community, many of them with large families.
  • The period of affluence and lively hospitality before 1914 was supplanted by the war years with hunger, cold, and death, and the postwar period of revolution, inflation, and impoverishment.
  • His eagerness in science was evident even during his boyhood when he had an interest in astronomy.

EDUCATION

  • Delbrück studied astrophysics, then later theoretical physics, at the University of Göttingen.
  • In 1930 after completing his Ph.D. there, he traveled through England, Denmark, and Switzerland.
  • He met Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr, who caught his attention in biology.

CAREER AND RESEARCH

  • In 1932, Delbrück returned to Berlin. He worked there as an assistant to Lise Meitner who was at that time collaborating with Otto Hahn.
  • Their work involved using neutrons to irradiate uranium.
  • Throughout his time with Meitner, Delbrück wrote numerous papers including one on gamma rays in 1933.
  • It concerned the scattering of gamma rays by vacuum caused by a Coulomb field’s polarization.
  • 20 years later, Hans Bethe confirmed the phenomenon and gave it the name “Delbrück Scattering”.
  • In 1935, Delbrück published a major work, “On the nature of gene mutation and gene structure”, with the collaboration of Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky and Karl Zimmer.
  • It was recognized as a major advance in understanding the nature of gene mutation and gene structure.
  • The work provided a foundation in the formation of molecular genetics.
  • It was additionally an inspirational starting point for Erwin Schrödinger’s thinking, a course of lectures in 1943, and the eventual writing of the book What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell.
  • However, Delbrück was also now interested in biology and started to study that field of science.
  • He left Nazi Germany in 1937 and attained a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1937 at the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH).
  • There, he began to study biology and genetics and the reproduction of bacteriophages.
  • During that time, CALTECH was launching the molecular biology research program to study fruit fly genetics.
  • In 1938, Delbrück met biologist Emory Elis. He became interested in the bacteriophage research that Elis was conducting to understand the role of viruses in cancer.
  • In 1939, they published their paper “The Growth of Bacteriophage” which showed how viruses reproduce in one step, dissimilar to cellular organisms that reproduce exponentially, and detailed methods to quantitate and keep track of the growth of phage in a specific host.
  • Delbrück’s role with the Rockefeller Foundation ended in 1939.
  • However, he joined Vanderbilt University in Tennessee from 1940 to 1947 teaching physics.
  • He continued his bacteriophage research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island in New York.
  • Delbrück met Salvador Luria, an Italian microbiologist from Indiana University, in 1941.
  • Luria was conducting bacteriophage research and together they published “Mutations of Bacteria from Virus Sensitivity to Virus Resistance” in 1943.
  • In the same year, Delbrück, Alfred Hershey, and Salvador Luna formed the “Phage Group”.
  • The group made findings towards explaining important aspects of cell physiology.
  • In 1945, Delbrück became a US citizen.
  • In 1947, he went back to Caltech as a professor of biology and settled there for the rest of his career.
  • In 1959, Delbrück founded the Institute of Genetics in Cologne, Germany to encourage research in molecular biology in his birth country.

LATER LIFE AND LEGACY

  • During his later years, Delbrück concentrated on helping to increase physical scientists’ interest in biology.
  • Erwin Schrodinger relied on his inferences on the susceptibility of genes to mutation when he wrote his book “What is Life?”.
  • Delbrück retired from his teaching position at Caltech and became Professor of Biology Emeritus in 1977.
  • Max Delbrück died at the age of 74 on March 9, 1981 in Pasadena, California at Huntington Memorial Hospital.

Max Delbruck Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the Max Delbruck across 21 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Max Delbruck worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück who was a German–American biophysicist. He was a founder of the field of molecular biology. Additionally, Delbrück was a 1969 Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine with Hershey and Luria “for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses”.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Max Delbruck Facts
  • Delbruck’s Background
  • Nazism
  • The Place You Were Born
  • Important Events
  • Related to Delbruck
  • Bacteriophage
  • Truth or Trash?
  • Other Awardees
  • Inspire Them!
  • Delbruck Acrostics

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