25 Facts About Colin Pittendrigh

Colin Stephenson Pittendrigh was a British-born biologist who spent most of his adult life in the United States.

Colin Pittendrigh is known for his careful descriptions of the properties of the circadian clock in Drosophila and other species, and providing the first formal models of how circadian rhythms entrain to local light-dark cycles.

Colin Pittendrigh was born in Whitley Bay, on the coast of Northumberland on October 13,1918.

Colin Pittendrigh received his first degree in botany in 1940 from University of Durham, now University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Colin Pittendrigh was a conscientious objector and so during World War II, he was assigned to wartime service to try and improve the production of bananas and other fruit that was being shipped to the UK during the war.

Colin Pittendrigh worked as a biologist for the Rockefeller Foundation and the government of Trinidad to control malaria near the military bases there.

Colin Pittendrigh studied the epidemiology of malaria transmitted by mosquitoes breeding in epiphytic bromeliad in the forest canopy.

Colin Pittendrigh made acute observations on bromeliad distribution within forest canopies and between contrasting forest formations.

Colin Pittendrigh observed daily rhythms in mosquito activity patterns, particularly noting that peak activity times were different for different species at different canopy levels.

Margaret and Colin Pittendrigh had two children, Robin Rourk, who currently lives in Louisville, Colorado and Colin Pittendrigh Jr.

Colin Pittendrigh was an avid fly fisherman and outdoorsman, and he and his wife retired to Bozeman, Montana because of their love of the Rocky Mountains.

Colin Pittendrigh served on a variety of national scientific boards including the Science Advisory Committee to the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In 1969 Colin Pittendrigh left Princeton to join the faculty of Stanford where he helped found the program in Human Biology and later became the director of the Hopkins Marine Station.

Colin Pittendrigh retired from Stanford in 1984 and moved to Bozeman, Montana.

Colin Pittendrigh met Jurgen Aschoff in 1958 when Aschoff made his first visit to the United States.

Colin Pittendrigh studied the eclosion rate of fruit flies, while Aschoff studied the continuous circadian rhythm of birds, mammals, and humans.

Colin Pittendrigh found an ingenious solution to controlling the mosquito population.

Colin Pittendrigh was influential in establishing many of the key criteria that a biological system must have in order to be considered a biological clock.

Colin Pittendrigh's work studying the eclosion rhythms of Drosophila pseudoobscura demonstrated that 1) eclosion rhythms persist without environmental cues (i.

Colin Pittendrigh himself recognized that his model of entrainment was based on simplification and could not accurately model all cases of entrainment.

Colin Pittendrigh was involved in the anti-contamination panel in the international Committee on Space Research, which deals with the risk of contaminating Mars with life from earth and thus destroying man's opportunity to learn whether life developed spontaneously on Mars.

Dual oscillator model Under constant light and high light intensity, Colin Pittendrigh observed the locomotor activity of hamsters split into two parts, each has its own period.

The later part of Colin Pittendrigh's research is devoted to studying the temperature dependence of photoperiodic responses in drosophila.

Colin Pittendrigh proposed another dual oscillator model, in which the master oscillator is light sensitive, and the slave oscillator is temperature sensitive.

Colin Pittendrigh collaborated with Knopka on the study of drosophila per mutants and their different entrainment responses to temperature and light stimuli.