Know the scientist: Max Delbruck

Max Delbruck (1906 - 1981) was a German–American biophysicist, recognised for his contribution to molecular genetics. He won the 1969 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacterial cells.

Max Delbruck was born in Berlin, Germany. In 1930, he received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Gottingen. As a physicist, Delbruck worked as an assistant to Lise Meitner and studied irradiation of uranium and neutron. But sooner, he became interested in bacteriophages, after his meeting with Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr. In 1937, Delbruck left Nazi Germany for the United States, having won the Rockefeller Foundation scholarship to do research on the genetics of fruit fly in California Institute of Technology (Caltech). While at Caltech, he studied bacteria and their viruses called bacteriophages. In 1939, Delbruck discovered a one-step process for growing bacteriophages, which after a one-hour latent period would multiply to produce several hundred thousand progeny. He co-authored The growth of bacteriophage along with Emory L. Ellis with this finding.