Morris Soller

Soller was born in Manhattan, New York City in 1931.{{cite journal | last=Soller | first=Morris | title=If a Bull Were a Cow, How Much Milk Would He Give? | journal=Annual Review of Animal Biosciences | publisher=Annual Reviews | volume=3 | issue=1 | date=2015-02-16 | issn=2165-8102 | doi=10.1146/annurev-animal-022114-110751 | pages=1–17| pmid=25493539 | s2cid=46733451 | doi-access=free }}{{cite web | url=https://www.isag.us/docs/Bio_Soller.pdf | title=Soller | website=International Society for Animal Genetics (ISAG)}} At the age of 12 he was first inspired to learn about genetics by reading The Theory of the Gene by Thomas Hunt Morgan.{{cite journal | last=Khatib | first=Hasan | title=Foreword | journal=Animal Genetics | publisher=International Foundation for Animal Genetics (Wiley) | volume=43 | date=2012-06-28 | issn=0268-9146 | doi=10.1111/j.1365-2052.2012.02390.x | page=1 | issue=s1 | s2cid=26400727 | pmid=22742497}}{{cite book | last=Womack | first=James E. | title=Bovine genomics | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | publication-place=Ames, Iowa | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-8138-2122-1 | oclc=780445244 | language=en | pages=xi+271}} {{ISBN|978-1-118-30173-9}}.{{rp|ix}} While an undergraduate he read Jay Laurence Lush's Animal Breeding Plans and learned much from it {{endash}} and would receive the award named for Lush 50 years later {{endash}} see below. Soller also learned much from the writings of Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright during this time. In 1951 he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Agriculture and then in 1956 both a Master's Degree in Applied Statistics and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Animal Breeding from Rutgers University. He would later return to his birth country for further postdoctoral education at Indiana University and Roosevelt University in biochemistry.

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In 1957 he was hired by the Volcani Center as their senior scientist for animal breeding and by Bar-Ilan University as a senior lecturer of Biology and Genetics. He moved his family to Israel where they have lived most of their lives since. Between 1966 and 1972 Soller was a lecturer at Roosevelt University in the USA. In 1972 he returned to Israel to lecture at the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of Genetics. He would eventually become a full professor and emeritus professor in 2000. He has since continued actively in lecturing and research including sabbaticals as the Cotswold Visiting Scientist at Iowa State University, at the University of Illinois and elsewhere.

Soller is the originator of quantitative trait locus mapping and marker-assisted selection. He began noticing the statistical patterns and composing the mathematical tools that would be required for these techniques in 1974, while studying crop genetics and livestock genetics. He went on to collaborate with his students and peers to create the F2, backcrossing, full sib, half sib, granddaughter, AIL and selective DNA pooling techniques in QTL mapping. Along with other laboratories around the world, his group developed some of the earliest restriction fragment length polymorphism markers for cattle and microsatellite markers for chickens.

He has especially become known for using these techniques to analyse trypanotolerance in cattle, especially in the N'Dama breed. Soller has also applied QTL analysis to dairy traits and Marek's disease.

• 1996 {{endash}} American Association for the Advancement of Science elected him a Fellow
• 1999 {{endash}} Awarded the Jay L. Lush Award by the American Dairy Science Association
• 2000 {{endash}} Chosen to give the A. B. Chapman Lecture of the University of Wisconsin
• 2000 {{endash}} Honorary doctorate from Iowa State University "for leading the way in the actual

discovery of genetic science"{{cite web | year=2011 | author=Iowa State University | author-link=Iowa State University | url=https://www.graduation.iastate.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/programs/program-s11.pdf | pages=1–120}}{{ RP | page=119 }}

• 2007 {{endash}} Honorary doctorate from the University of Liege, Belgium
• 2012 {{endash}} Honorary member of the International Society for Animal Genetics{{cite web | title=Honorary Members | website=International Society for Animal Genetics (ISAG) | url=http://www.isag.us/honorary_members.asp | access-date=2022-02-08}}
• 2012 {{endash}} The journal Animal Genetics published a special issue in his honor.

{{As of|2012}} Soller had authored and coauthored over 170 peer reviewed publications, and many book chapters and encyclopedia articles. The organisms he has studied include cattle and chickens, but also extend to plants, viruses, mice, pigs and others.

• {{cite journal | last1=Kemp | first1=Stephen J. | last2=Iraqi | first2=Fuad | last3=Darvasi | first3=Ariel | last4=Soller | first4=Morris | author4-link=Morris Soller | last5=Teale | first5=Alan J. | title=Localization of genes controlling resistance to trypanosomiasis in mice | journal=Nature Genetics | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=16 | issue=2 | year=1997 | issn=1061-4036 | doi=10.1038/ng0697-194 | pages=194–196 | pmid=9171834| s2cid=19998760 }} {{q|Q58843113}}.

::{{emdash}}Popularly cited including by{{cite thesis | type=phd | title=Breeding for trypanotolerance in African cattle | s2cid=80958484 | first=Elisabeth Hillechien | last=van der Waaij | institution=Animal Breeding and Genetics Group Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences | isbn=90-5808-458-2}}{{cite journal | last1=Kemp | first1=S.J. | last2=Teale | first2=A.J. | title=Genetic Basis of Trypanotolerance in Cattle and Mice | journal=Parasitology Today | publisher=Elsevier | volume=14 | issue=11 | year=1998 | issn=0169-4758 | doi=10.1016/s0169-4758(98)01334-9 | pages=450–454 | s2cid=3253779 | pmid=17040846}}{{cite journal | last=Darvasi | first=Ariel | title=Experimental strategies for the genetic dissection of complex traits in animal models | journal=Nature Genetics | publisher=Nature Portfolio | volume=18 | issue=1 | year=1998 | issn=1061-4036 | doi=10.1038/ng0198-19 | pages=19–24 | pmid=9425894 | s2cid=25815459}}{{cite journal | last=Naessens | first=J. | title=Bovine trypanotolerance: A natural ability to prevent severe anaemia and haemophagocytic syndrome? | journal=International Journal for Parasitology | publisher=Australian Society for Parasitology (Elsevier) | volume=36 | issue=5 | year=2006 | issn=0020-7519 | doi=10.1016/j.ijpara.2006.02.012 | pages=521–528 | pmid=16678182 | citeseerx=10.1.1.384.4142 | s2cid=11889368}}{{cite journal | last1=d'Ieteren | first1=G.D.M. | last2=Authie | first2=E. | last3=Wissocq | first3=N. | last4=Murray | first4=M. | title=Trypanotolerance, an option for sustainable livestock production in areas at risk from trypanosomosis | journal=Revue Scientifique et Technique de l'OIE | publisher=O.I.E (World Organisation for Animal Health) | volume=17 | issue=1 | date=1998-04-01 | issn=0253-1933 | doi=10.20506/rst.17.1.1088 | pages=154–175 | s2cid=1188831 | pmid=9638808| doi-access=free | hdl=10568/29592 | hdl-access=free }}

• {{cite journal | last=Soller | first=Morris | title=If a Bull Were a Cow, How Much Milk Would He Give? | journal=Annual Review of Animal Biosciences | publisher=Annual Reviews | volume=3 | issue=1 | date=2015-02-16 | issn=2165-8102 | doi=10.1146/annurev-animal-022114-110751 | pages=1–17| pmid=25493539 | s2cid=46733451 | doi-access=free }}

::{{emdash}} An autobiography Soller was invited to write by Annual Reviews

{{reflist}}

• {{cite web | website=The National Library of Israel | title=Morris Soller | url=http://www.nli.org.il/en/a-topic/987007435544505171 | access-date=2022-02-08}}

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Category:1931 births

Category:Living people

Category:Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Category:Educators from Manhattan

Category:Rutgers University alumni

Category:Northwestern University faculty

Category:Roosevelt University faculty

Category:Indiana University faculty

Category:Academic staff of Bar-Ilan University

Category:Dairy farming in Israel

Category:American agronomists

Category:Israeli agronomists

Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Category:American emigrants to Israel

he:משה מוריס סולר