Johannes Holtfreter
| Johannes Holtfreter | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 9, 1901 Richtenberg, Germany |
| Died | November 13, 1992 (aged 91) Rochester, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | United States |
| Known for | Chemotaxis |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Embryology |
Johannes Holtfreter (January 9, 1901 – November 13, 1992) was a German-American developmental biologist whose primary focus was the “organizer,” a part of the embryo essential for the development of the proper body plan.
Holtfreter was born on January 9, 1901, in Richtenberg, Pomerania, Germany, as the only son and second out of three children. As a child, he captured animals (including butterflies) and made drawings of them, and after graduating from the Realgymnasium, he wanted to enter field biology. Upon beginning this path at the and the University of Leipzig, he eventually moved to the University of Freiburg in order to study under Doflein, a famous naturalist who died soon after Holtfreter transferred. His new thesis advisor was Dr. Hans Spemann, who introduced Holtfreter to his eventual field of study: embryology.
After obtaining his Ph.D. in 1924, he eventually entered the field of marine biology at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, and traveled around Europe afterwards, painting, attempting to research, and passing through locations including Lapland and Helgoland. However, he was unable to find a steady research position until 1928, when Otto Mangold of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute recruited Holtfreter. Here, Holtfreter followed up on the research his old advisor (Spemann) did on the concept of an “organizer,” or a part of the developing organism that dictates the fates of other cells. Joseph Needham, an English biologist interested in Holtfreter’s work, went to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute in order to research with him.
Holtfreter then researched at the University of Munich, beginning in 1934, and pursued further global travels, particularly to Bali. Needham, the English researcher who was also interested in the organizer, was able to ensure Holtfreter’s escape from the Nazi regime in 1939 after Holtfreter commented how the Gestapo was watching him and how his safety seemed jeopardized. After fleeing to Cambridge University, Holtfreter was taken to an internment camp in Canada in 1940 due to his German nationality. He then obtained a research position in McGill University in 1942, where he based gastrulation-centered work on research conducted by Vogt in 1929.
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