George Irving Bell
| George Irving Bell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
4 August 1926 Evanston, Illinois |
| Died | 28 May 2000 (aged 73) |
| Residence | United States |
| Nationality | US |
| Fields | Theoretical Physics |
| Alma mater |
Harvard University (B.S. Physics) Cornell University (Ph.D. Theoretical Physics) |
| Doctoral advisor | Hans Bethe |
| Known for | Human Genome Project |
George Irving Bell (August 4, 1926 – May 28, 2000) was an American physicist,biologist and mountaineer, and a grandson of John Joseph Seerley. He died from complications of leukemia after surgery.
Bell received a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1947. He studied theoretical physics with Hans Bethe at Cornell University, obtaining his doctorate in 1951.
Immediately after receiving his PhD, Bell came to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and joined the "T Division." At the time, this division was primarily occupied in the design of the first thermonuclear weapon. Bell contributed by solving problems of neutron transport.
Such problems are also crucial in the design and analysis of nuclear reactors, so it was natural that Bell became a leading expert on the physics of reactors. He co-authored the book Nuclear Reactor Theory with Samuel Glasstone.
Bell's interests turned to biology in the 1960s, creating quantitative models in immunology. He headed the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics group at Los Alamos from 1974 to 1990. He also worked on mathematical models in biophysics. In 1988, he became the founding director of the Center for Human Genome Studies, which became a major participant in the Human Genome Project. He was director for only one year (simultaneously acting as the head of T Division and the group leader for the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics group), and retired from Los Alamos in 1990. He continued to work as an associate of the laboratory until September 1999.
Bell was the author of over 100 research papers, and the co-editor of Theoretical Immunology (1978) and Computers and DNA (1989; ).
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