One of the greatest biologists of the 20th century, Seymour Benzer died last Friday. In his obituary post John Dennehy focuses on the bacteriophage work that led to deciphering of the genetic "alphabet", and so does Carl Zimmer.
Readers of my blog probably know the name more in the connection with the discovery of the first clock mutants in Drosophila, by Ron Konopka in Benzer's lab. You can read the paper itself (pdf) and watch a video in which Benzer explains it.
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Just to emphasize further, Benzer essentially created the field of neurogenetics from nothing. Everyone thought the idea that a single gene mutation could have a specific effect on a complex behavior was totally insane. Ron and Seymour proved them wrong.