Herman M. Slatis papers

Record Group

Identifier: UA-17.105

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Herman M. Slatis papers contain correspondence written by Slatis to various people during his time at Michigan State University. The majority of the letters are to Alexander Sokoloff about his work with the Tribolium confusum, or confused floor beetle. Sokoloff was a faculty member at the Department of Genetics at the University of California in Berkeley, California. The letters include notes on his work with the beetles and also include personal correspondence between the two men.

Dates

Creation: 1963 - 1972

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish material from this collection must be obtained from University Archives & Historical Collections, Michigan State University.

Biographical Note

Herman M. Slatis was a professor of Zoology at Michigan State University from 1963 until his untimely death in 1976. Slatis was a specialist in Human Genetics. Between 1972 and 1973, Slatis took a sabbatical to study human genetics in Israel. During this trip, Slatis studied genetic susceptibility to lung cancer. At that time little was known about lung cancer and the genetics of it. During his professorial career, he studied the crosses of the Tribolium confusum, or the confused floor beetle, which is typically found in stored grains. During his studies Slatis looked at the fertility rate when certain types of beetles were crossed with other types, for example, red males with black females. Slatis served as the Director of the American Society of Human Genetics from 1964 to 1966.