Manfred Gersch

Manfred Gersch (born August 12, 1909 in Dresden ; † December 4, 1981 in Jena ) was a German zoologist and animal physiologist who dealt with neurosciences and entomology and is considered one of the founding fathers of the endocrinology of invertebrates. He was a professor at the University of Jena and since its founding in 1965 head of the animal physiology department of the GDR Biological Society.

Life

After graduating from high school in Dresden in 1929, he studied zoology (as well as botany and chemistry) in Leipzig with Johannes Meisenheimer and Paul Buchner , where he received his doctorate in 1936. In 1938 he completed his habilitation in Leipzig. At first he dealt with mollusks, from 1942 with insects. He was a soldier in World War II and was a Soviet prisoner of war until 1949. In 1951 he became a professor in Jena.

The focus of his work was comparative endocrinology, which he researched particularly on insects, and neurohormones . In the 1950s he was a pioneer in the field of neurohormones, which he researched on mosquito larvae (genus Corethra ). In the early 1950s he showed that melanophores from the tracheal bladders were controlled by neurohormones from the abdomen. Together with Hans Unger , he isolated a number of neurohormones from insects in 1957, such as the neurohormone D (D for dilitator), which controls the heart's activity and which was stimulating in lower doses and blocking in higher doses. He wrote 188 scientific articles and 8 books.

From 1962 he was co-editor of the Zoological Gazette and from 1958 of the Zoological Yearbooks . From 1955 he was a member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin and from 1959 to 1965 chairman of its biology department. In 1958 he became a member of the Leopoldina and received the national 3rd class prize of the GDR. In 1961 he became a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig , in 1965 a member of the European Society of Comparative Endocrinology and in 1968 a member of the All-Union Society for Entomology of the USSR. In 1970 he became a member of the Executive Committee of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). Gersch was an honorary member of the Biological Society of the GDR and the Society for Neurosciences. In 1965/66 he was President of the German Zoological Society .

Fonts

• Cell Biology, Leipzig: Teubner 1953
• Comparative endocrinology of invertebrates, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Geest and Portig, 1964
• Editor with K. Richter: Das peptiderge Neuron, Jena: G. Fischer 1981
• The evolution of the hormonal system in the animal kingdom, Akademie Verlag Berlin 1982
• Editor: Collected lectures on modern problems of the theory of descent, 2 volumes, Jena, Friedrich Schiller University 1965
• Hormones as regulators of life processes, Sächs meeting reports. Akad. Wiss., 106, 1963
• Neuroendocrinology of insects, Sächs meeting reports. Akad. Wiss., 108, 1968
• Problems with insecticides from today's perspective, Sächs meeting reports. Akad. Wiss., 111, 1976
• Growth and growth regulators of crabs: biological findings and general considerations, Sächs meeting reports. Akad. Wiss., 113, 1979
• Editor with Peter Karlson : Leopoldina-Symposium The Evolution of hormonal systems: Schloß Reinhardsbrunn (Thuringia, GDR) March 22 to 26, 1981, Nova Acata Leopoldina, New Series, Volume 56, 1984

Web links

• H. Penzlin, Obituary in Entomological News and Reports, 26, 1982, issue 4, p. 188 (PDF; 1.5 MB; German)

References and comments

1. ↑ KG Adiyodi (1982): Obituary Manfred Gersch. International Journal of Invertebrate Reproduction 5 (3): 181. doi : 10.1080 / 01651269.1982.10553467
2. ↑ Manfred Gersch (1936): The genital apparatus and the sexual biology of the North Sea trochid journal for morphology and ecology of animals, Volume 31: 106-150.
3. ↑ Manfred Gersch (1938): The development cycle of the dicyemids representatives of the Rhombozoa . Journal of Scientific Zoology. Vol. 151 (4): 515-605.