Ernst Hadorn

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Ernst Hadorn

Ernst Hadorn (born May 31, 1902 in Forst ; † April 4, 1976 in Wohlen near Bern ) was a Swiss zoologist . Hadorn combined genetics and developmental biology and became one of the pioneers of modern developmental genetics .

career

The son of a farmer was initially a primary and secondary school teacher in Lütiwil from 1922 to 1925 and studied natural sciences at the universities of Bern , Munich and Paris from 1925 . In 1931 he started working with Fritz Baltzer with a thesis on the subject of “ On organ development and histological differentiation in transplanted merogonic bastard tissues in Triton palmatus female. x Triton cristatus male »and was then a secondary school teacher in Thun . In 1935 he completed his habilitation at the University of Bern . From 1936 to 1937 he was a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation in the USA, where he worked for Thomas Hunt Morgan , among others . At the University of Rochester he got in contact with Curt Stern who turned his interest to the research object Drosophila . In 1939 he became associate professor, in 1943 full professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Zurich . Hadorn retired in 1972.

Hadorn was temporarily rector of the University of Zurich and later the initiator of the Zurich-Irchel research campus , for which he campaigned vigorously in a referendum in 1970. Ernst Hadorn is the father of the pediatrician Hans-Beat Hadorn .

research

Hadorn's main research focus was genetics. His research object was mainly the fruit fly Drosophila , in which he discovered the so-called ring gland as the central organ for hormone production . He also demonstrated that lethal factors have a phase-specific effect, i.e. in a certain developmental stage of the hereditary carrier, as well as cell and organ-specific effects. Together with Herschel K. Mitchell , Hadorn introduced the technique of paper chromatography to examine fluorescent substances, the so-called pterins , in the mutants of Drosophila . His earliest research objects were amphibians , on which he also wrote his doctoral thesis.

One of his best-known discoveries is the fact that the early organ systems of the fly Drosophila change their direction of determination under certain experimental conditions, i.e. can form wings or antennae instead of legs. Hadorn called this process transdetermination . Hadorn was a co-founder of the journal Developmental Biology .

Honors and memberships

The Ernst Hadorn Foundation, which is based in Zurich, was set up in his honor. Its purpose is to promote basic scientific research at the University of Zurich.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ HK Mitchell: Ernst Hadorn . In: Annual Review of Genetics . tape 12 , no. 1 , December 1978, ISSN  0066-4197 , p. 1–24 , doi : 10.1146 / annurev.ge.12.120178.000245 ( annualreviews.org [accessed May 8, 2020]).
  2. ^ Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique: Ernst Hadorn
  3. ↑ http://www.leopoldina.org/de/lösungen/lösungen/member/3605/
  4. ↑ http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/20001734.html

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hadorn, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Forst BE
DATE OF DEATH April 4th 1976
Place of death Wohlen near Bern