Profile of Jeffrey C. Hall
- Regina Nuzzo, Science Writer
When geneticist Jeffrey C. Hall looks back on his career path, he offers praise for each of the personalities he has encountered, from his deaf undergraduate advisor to his fellow Civil War scholars—not to mention the small, elegant, and urbane fruit fly. “They're very complex organisms, quite sophisticated and interesting,” he says of Drosophila, the neurobiology and behavior of which have occupied his research since college.
To Hall, Drosophila are valuable for more than just their easily manipulated genomes. As he grew to “love the fly,” he also began to delve into the insect's genetics, neurobiology, and behavior at a deep level. Convinced of the worth of analyzing Drosophila mutants for studying behavior, Hall has dedicated his career to probing the neurobiological underpinnings of the fly's courtship and behavioral rhythms. His research with Drosophila genetics has elucidated the mechanisms of biological clocks and opened a window into the basis for sexual differentiation in the nervous system.
Hall, a Professor of Biology at Brandeis University (Waltham, MA), was a recipient of the Genetics Society of America Medal in 2003, the same year he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. His Inaugural Article in this issue of PNAS (1) investigates the fruitless gene, which controls behavior such as the recognition by a male of whom he might “choose” to court and courtship singing behavior, by analyzing the behavioral meaning of this gene's expression within various regions of the nervous system.
Small and Simple Research
Born in Brooklyn, NY, Hall grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where his father worked as an Associated Press reporter, covering the U.S. Senate. His father's attitude permeated his consciousness in many ways, Hall says, causing him to, for example, “read more than just the sports section each morning.” A good but not stellar student in high …
