Digitising the archive of geneticist Hans Grüneberg

The Wellcome Library is host to numerous scientists who are famed for discovering important aspects of genetics, many of whose papers are being digitised as part of a major on-going project. While Arthur Mourant was the so-called ‘father of serology’, Hans Grüneberg was believed to be the ‘father of mouse genetics’ (Lewis and Hunt, Biographical Memoirs of Members of the Royal Society, 1984, vol. 30, p.239).

His papers were recently catalogued (see our earlier post) and these papers are now in the process of being digitised. A gifted Jewish scientist, Grüneberg was plucked from Germany in 1933, to work on the genetics of the mouse at University College London, alongside another distinguished geneticist, J. B. S. Haldane. According to Lewis and Hunt, Gruneberg's "...great strength was his singleness of purpose … reinforced when he saw the mouse as a model for the understanding of inherited defects in man". 

Grüneberg’s personal papers contain numerous lab notes, correspondence and research on the genetic make-up and defects of the ‘house mouse’, including press cuttings retained by Grüneberg for their relevance to his work. But it wasn’t just mice Grüneberg paid attention to as we see in a cutting dated 15 November 1947, headed ‘'British Rabbits. They like to walk on two feet” which shows two rabbits (see image above) apparently suffering from a genetic spinal defect: 

"On a table top in Reginald Freeman's butcher shop in Barking outside of London, England, two young rabbits named Junior and Mr. Walker padded back and forth on their forefeet before an admiring crowd. Mr Freeman, used to his rabbits' habits, took a seat in the corner. To people who wondered why the rabbits walked this way, he explained that the rabbits simply like to. Both have been doing it since they were born. Mr. Walker the elder rabbit, started right off walking on his forefeet. Junior, a female, at first experimented with the more conventional four-legged method but after watching Mr. Walker for a while switched to his two-legged style. Mr. Freeman asked a veterinarian about all this and was told the rabbits' spinal muscles were underdeveloped and they walked on two legs because it was easier".

The study of spinal cord neural tube defects, which would have probably been the cause of the rabbits' deformity was one of the areas that Grüneberg researched in embryonic and new born (specifically 'curly-tail') mice for their striking similarity to the situation in humans. For information on his research in this field, see 'Genetical studies of the skeleton of the mouse VIII. curly-tail' in Journal of Genetics 52 (1954), The pathology of development : a study of inherited skeletal disorders in animals / by Hans Grüneberg, Oxford, Blackwell, 1963 and file ref: PP/GRU/80)

Image refs: Photograph from press cutting dated 15 November 1947 File ref: PP/GRU/57. X-ray of normal (left) and transgenic (right) mice, B0003657, Wellcome Images.

Main man for mutant mice

Archives and Manuscripts is pleased to announce that a detailed catalogue of the papers of the geneticist Professor Hans Grüneberg FRS (1907-1982) is now available online. Although a rudimentary boxlisting of this collection has been available for some considerable time, this failed adequately to reflect the richness and importance of Grüneberg’s correspondence, covering the years 1922-1982, with colleagues, friends, family, institutions, publishers, etc. This correspondence has now been listed in detail with (as far as possible, since some signatures remain illegible, or consist merely of a nickname) the names of correspondents given, searchable via the online catalogue.

Grüneberg was something of a prodigy, publishing his first paper (on Devonian fossils) in the yearbook of the Elberfeld Natural History Society when he was only 17. He studied medicine and genetics in Bonn and Berlin but his career in Germany was adversely affected by the rise of the Nazis to power and early in 1933 he lost his position at the Elberfeld Municipal Hospital. Shortly afterwards he was invited to pursue genetic research with J. B. S. Haldane at University College London, where he arrived in August 1933, finding the ambience very different from what he was used to in Germany. Apart from a period in the Army during the Second World War, he spent the rest of his life at UCL, retiring as Emeritus Professor of Genetics in 1974.

Along with C H Waddington (with whom there is a substantial tranche of correspondence in this collection), Grüneberg established the field of development genetics, studying pathological processes in mutant mice, and formulating a "pedigree of causes" of genes, which was an important model for human disease. His interest in mouse mutations led him into correspondence with amateur breeders of fancy mice as well as scientific colleagues, while he was also interested in questions of best practice in feeding, housing and general maintenance of laboratory mice. His ‘waltzing mice’ were featured in a BBC science programme. He took an active part in the discussions of the Committee for Standardized Nomenclature of Inbred Strains of Mice.

The collection, while reflecting Grüneberg’s own significant work in genetics, and his importance in establishing the mouse as a leading animal model in mammalian genetics, also includes his later work on snails and radiation-induced mutation, and his involvement in the teaching of the subject in medical schools. It contains much correspondence from leading contemporaries in the field, including fellow refugees such as Charlotte Auerbach FRS. There are also substantial amounts of material on his travels, particularly to India and Sri Lanka, and his relationships with colleagues in those countries, and on his work as external examiner in genetics at the University of Malaysia.

Apart from a small amount of material closed for reasons of Data Protection, this collection is available to researchers subject to the usual conditions of access to material in Archives and Manuscripts.