Walter Gehring

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Walter Jakob Gehring (2014)

Walter Jakob Gehring (born March 20, 1939 in Zurich ; † May 29, 2014 in Basel ) was a Swiss molecular and developmental biologist .

Life

Gehring studied zoology at the University of Zurich and was awarded a Dr. rer nat. PhD. He learned from the outstanding Swiss geneticist and developmental biologist Ernst Hadorn . His field of work was the phenomenon of transdetermination , the change in the direction of destination of the imaginal discs during which the development of Drosophila , i.e. legs instead of antennae.

As a postdoctoral fellow, he went to the laboratory of Alan Garen , a pioneer in bacterial molecular genetics and one of the first scientists to apply molecular biology techniques to Drosophila.

As early as 1969 he was offered an independent faculty position. His first student was Eric Wieschaus , who later won the Nobel Prize . He showed with Lily Chan, a student in cooking laboratory that the investment plan (Engl. Fate map is established) of the adult fly already in the embryo. From 1972 Gehring was Professor of Developmental Biology and Genetics at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel . Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard , who later won the Nobel Prize, was one of his staff . In 2009 he retired , but continued to research the development of the eyes on a smaller scale.

Gehring became known for the discovery of the molecular coincidences of various homeotic genes and the associated homeoboxes (a name coined by Gehring) with the Hox genes contained therein . This gave decisive indications of an evolutionary origin that is common to the control of embryonic development in all animals. The starting point was the isolation of the gene coding for Antennapedia using the chromosomal walking method developed by David Hogness . Gehring also discovered that the control gene pax6, which is crucial for eye development, plays an evolutionarily conserved role in the development of the eye types of many different animals.

Gehring was Secretary General of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and President of the International Society for Developmental Biologists. From 1987 he was an elected member of the Leopoldina . Also in 1987 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1986 to the National Academy of Sciences and 1998 to the Académie des sciences .

He died in a car accident in May 2014 at the age of 75.

Awards

Publications

Books:

Audio CD:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death: Gehring-Lott Walter ( memento from June 3, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ), website of the Therwil community , May 29, 2014, accessed on June 3, 2014.
  2. ↑ M. Affolte, M. Müller: Walter Jakob Gehring (1939-2014). In: Developmental cell. Volume 30, Number 2, July 2014, pp. 120-122, PMID 25215373 .
  3. ↑ E. Wieschaus, C. Nüsslein-Volhard: Walter Gehring (1939-2014). In: Current biology: CB. Volume 24, Number 14, July 2014, pp. R632-R634, PMID 25187930 .
  4. ↑ LN Chan, W. Gehring: Determination of blastoderm cells in Drosophila melanogaster. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . Volume 68, Number 9, September 1971, pp. 2217-2221, PMID 5002429 , PMC 389388 (free full text).
  5. ↑ RL Garber, A. Kuroiwa, WJ Gehring: Genomic and cDNA clones of the homeotic locus Antennapedia in Drosophila. In: The EMBO journal. Volume 2, Number 11, 1983, pp. 2027-2036, PMID 6416827 , PMC 555405 (free full text).
  6. ↑ Member entry by Walter J. Gehring at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 5, 2014.
  7. ↑ developmental biologist Walter Gehring is dead. In: Tages-Anzeiger .net / Newsnet from June 4, 2014
  8. ↑ http://www.alfred-vogt-stiftung.ch/preistraeger.php
personal data
SURNAME Gehring, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gehring, Walter Jakob (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss molecular and developmental biologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 2014
Place of death Basel