Hans Spemann

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Hans Spemann (before 1935)

Hans Spemann (born June 27, 1869 in Stuttgart , † September 12, 1941 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German physician and zoologist. In 1935 he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the “organizer effect in embryonic development”.

life and work

Hans Spemann was the eldest son of the publisher Wilhelm Spemann and his wife Lisanka born. Hoffmann (1839-1871). From 1878 to 1888 he attended the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium in Stuttgart and worked in his father's shop for a year after graduating from school, and as a bookseller for a year after his military service (1889–1890). In 1891 he enrolled at the medical faculty of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg . There he felt particularly drawn to the work of the comparative anatomist Carl Gegenbaur . During his studies he became a member of the student union Karlsruhensia zu Heidelberg in Miltenberger Ring .

In the winter of 1893/94 he studied in Munich, where he made the acquaintance of August Pauly . From spring 1894 to 1908 he worked at the Zoological Institute in Würzburg , where he completed his studies in zoology, botany and physics in 1895 and received his doctorate there. His teachers were Theodor Boveri , Julius Sachs and Wilhelm Röntgen , who all had a special influence on him.

In 1898 he completed his habilitation with a zoological thesis in medicine.

As early as 1902, Spemann carried out the first important experiments on cell division based on the work of Jacques Loeb and August Weismann ( germ plasm theory ) . For example, he succeeded in separating the two cells of the two-cell stage of a salamander with an infant hair, thereby artificially creating twins . Through this lacing experiment and further experiments on multicellular embryonic stages, it was shown that the cleavage cells of an embryo still contain all of the genetic information necessary for further development in the early stages of development .

Memorial plaque for Hans Spemann in Rostock

From 1908 Spemann taught as a professor for general zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Rostock . From 1914 to 1919 he was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem (predecessor of the Max Planck Institute for Biology ). From 1919 until his retirement in 1937 Spemann was professor and chair holder of zoology , from 1923 to 1924 even rector at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg .
From 1927 to his death in 1941 he was an "External Scientific Member" of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society .

In 1935 Spemann received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the organizer effect discovered together with Hilde Mangold and later named after Spemann during embryonic development . He had demonstrated through transplantation experiments on the early gastrula that a tissue behaves in a location-specific manner, i.e. develops according to the location at which the tissue was transplanted into the recipient gastrula, and not according to the place of origin in the donor organism. The cells were not yet determined at this early stage of development . In transplant experiments on the late gastrula, on the other hand, a different effect was found: Here the transplant developed according to its origin. That is, the tissue was now determined.

As early as 1938, Spemann proposed the method of nuclear transfer as a way of investigating the development potential of nuclei in differentiated cells. But it was only later that this method was used in research.

Spemann died on September 12, 1941 after a long-term heart disease and was cremated on September 15.

Honors

In 1906 Spemann was appointed a member of the Leopoldina . In 1921 he was elected an associate member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and in 1923 a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1929 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1925, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1933, and the American Philosophical Society in 1937 . In 1935 he received the Cothenius Medal from the Leopoldina.

Self-testimony

At first Boveri had suggested that I work on the development of the genital organs of the tapeworm, and only when I shyly protested that this would completely compromise me in the purely legal family of my bride did he laughingly switch to another worm, whose illustrious name is Strongylus paradoxus could to some extent reconcile with the fact that it is at home in the pig's lungs. (Research and Life 1943).

Fonts

  • with Hilde Mangold : About the induction of embryonic systems through the implantation of foreign organizers. In archive for microscopic anatomy and development mechanics . Volume 100 (1924), pp. 599-638.
  • Experimental contributions to a theory of development. German edition of the Silliman Lectures, held at Yale Univ. in late 1933, Julius Springer, Berlin 1936.
  • as Ed .: Research and Life. Stuttgart 1943.

student

Honor

A square on Freiburg's Lorettoberg is named after Spemann.

literature

  • Peter E. Fässler: Hans Spemann 1869–1941: Experimental research in the field of tension between empiricism and theory; a contribution to the history of developmental physiology at the beginning of the 20th century. Springer, 1997, ISBN 3-540-62557-7 .
  • Peter E. Fässler, Klaus Sander: Hilde Mangold (1898–1924) and Spemann's organizer: achievement and tragedy. In: Roux's Arch. Dev. Biol. 205, 1996, pp. 323-332.
  • Werner E. Gerabek :  Spemann, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 657 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Werner E. Gerabek: Spemann, Hans. In: Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1346 f.
  • Otto Mangold : Hans Spemann. The inventor of embryonic microsurgery, a master of developmental physiology In: Hans Schwerte , Wilhelm Spengler (Hrsg.): Researchers and scientists in Europe today. 2. Physicians, biologists, anthropologists. (= Creators of our time. Volume 4). Stalling, Oldenburg 1955, pp. 228-236 (The editors were previously SS cadres)
  • Klaus Sander : Hans Spemann (1869–1941): developmental biologist with a worldwide reputation. In: Biology in Our Time. 15, 1985, pp. 112-119.
  • Klaus Sander, Peter E. Fässler: Introducing the Spemann-Mangold organizer: experiments and insights that generated a key concept in developmental biology. In: Int. J. Dev. Biol. 45, 2001, pp. 1-11.

Web links

Commons : Hans Spemann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Spemann: Research and Life . Published by Friedrich Wilhelm Spemann. Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1943, pp. 15-16.
  2. ↑ Hans Spemann: On the development of the Strongylus paradoxus. Medical dissertation in Würzburg 1895.
  3. ^ Nobelprize.org: Hans Spemann - The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1935 (Biography)
  4. ↑ Hans Spemann: About the first development of the tuba eustachii and the head skeleton of Rana temporaria. Medical habilitation thesis Würzburg 1898.
  5. ↑ Andreas Sentker: The Chronicle of Cloning. In: DIE ZEIT ONLINE. ZEIT ONLINE GmbH, March 15, 2001, accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 591.
  7. ^ Marion Kazemi , Eckart Henning : Chronicle of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. 1911–2011 (= 100 years of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. Part I). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-428-13623-0 , p. 992 and others. As director of a KWI he was a "Scientific Member of the KWG".
  8. ↑ Peter E. Fässler (1997), p. 97.
  9. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 229.
  10. ↑ Member History: Hans Spemann. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 4, 2018 .
predecessor Office successor
Felix Rachfahl Rector of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg
1923–1924 		Otto Immisch
personal data
SURNAME Spemann, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1941
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau