Raymond Elliot Zirkle (January 9, 1902 – March 4, 1988) was an American biologist who was a pioneer in the field of radiation biology, and served as director of the Institute of Radio-Biology and Biophysics at the University of Chicago,[1][2] Damon Runyon Fellow.
[6] After graduating high school he joined the Missouri National Guard and in 1924 married Mary Evelyn Ramsey.
[6] His doctoral research involved irradiating spores of the fern Pteris longifolia with alpha particles from a polonium source.
[6] Zirkle developed mathematical models for predicting the survival rates of simple organisms, such as yeast, exposed to varying levels of radiation.
[6] In 1951–1952 he work with pathologist William Bloom used a microbeam of ionizing radiation to irradiate parts of living cells and using time-lapse photography to document the effects.