Columbia University Stanley Michael Gartler (born June 9, 1923) is an American cell and molecular biologist and human geneticist.

Gartler attended public school in Los Angeles and completed two years at university (UCLA) before enlisting in the Army Air Force during World War II.

In 1952 Gartler began a public health postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University to study human genetics,[4] which he completed over the course of five years.

[3][2] In 1957 Gartler was recruited by Arno G. Motulsky to join his newly established Division of Medical Genetics in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle.

He initially studied eighteen (supposedly) independently derived established human cell lines obtained from the American Type Culture Collection, including HeLa.

[13] Gartler's original paper to Nature went to lengths to dismiss this possibility, surveying over 100 tumors to see if there was a phenotypic change in either G6PD or PGM, as well as trying other experimental approaches to test the idea.

"[12] Further evidence against the possibility of phenotypic conversion came when Nellie Auesperg and Gartler identified a truly independently established human cell line, which they showed to exhibit unique genetic markers.

In 1991, evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen put forth an argument that the HeLa cell line constituted a new microbial species, which he proposed be designated Helacyton gartleri, in recognition of Gartler's work.