Morris Moshe Soller (; 1931 – May 2026) was an American-Israeli agricultural geneticist. He was a research professor in the Department of Genetics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His focus was livestock- and crop- genetics, including trypanotolerance in cattle.
Early life and education Soller was born in Manhattan, New York City, in 1931. At the age of 12 he was first inspired to learn about genetics by reading The Theory of the Gene by Thomas Hunt Morgan. . While an undergraduate he read Jay Laurence Lush's Animal Breeding Plans and learned much from it and would receive the award named for Lush 50 years later 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.
Research and teaching career 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 went on to live most of their lives. 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 later worked in lecturing and research including sabbaticals as the Cotswold Visiting Scientist at Iowa State University, at the University of Illinois and elsewhere.
Soller was 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 especially become known for using these techniques to analyse trypanotolerance in cattle, especially in the N'Dama breed. Soller also applied QTL analysis to dairy traits and Marek's disease.
Death On 14 May 2026, it was announced that Soller had died.
Professional recognition 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science elected him a Fellow 1999 Awarded the Jay L. Lush Award by the American Dairy Science Association 2000 Chosen to give the A. B. Chapman Lecture of the University of Wisconsin 2000 Honorary doctorate from Iowa State University "for leading the way in the actual discovery of genetic science"
2007 Honorary doctorate from the University of Liege, Belgium 2012 Honorary member of the International Society for Animal Genetics 2012 The journal Animal Genetics published a special issue in his honor.
Published works Soller had authored and coauthored over 170 peer reviewed publications, and many book chapters and encyclopedia articles. The organisms he studied include cattle and chickens, but also extend to plants, viruses, mice, pigs and others. . Popularly cited including by
An autobiography Soller was invited to write by Annual Reviews
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