Forschung und Leben [Research and Life]

Stuttgart: J. Engelhorns Nachfolger - Adolf Spemann, 1943. First edition (stated).

ASSOCIATION COPY OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GERMAN NOBELIST HANS SPEMANN INSCRIBED BY NOTED FINNISH EMBRYOLOGIST TO EMINENT SOUTH AFRICAN EMBRYOLOGIST LEWIS WOLPERT.

8 1/2 inches tall hardcover, marbled paper-covered boards, printed title to cover, tan cloth spine with gilt title, pencil note to front paste-down, "Spemann was awarded Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1935. Pres. copy to Lewis Wolpert." Inscribed in ink on half-title page: "To Lewis Wolpert/ with warmest thanks for a superb meeting and great hospitality/ Lauri Saxen" followed by, "and Marketta Karkinen-Jaaskelainen". 344 pp, photo portrait plates of Spemann in 1875, 1882, 1894, 1910, 1924, 1932, 1940, folding plate of "the handwriting of the seventy-year-old." Soiling to edges, lacking front flyleaf, binding tight, pages clean, unmarked, very good minus in custom archival mylar cover. GERMAN LANGUAGE.

HANS SPEMANN (1869 – 1941) was a German embryologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1935 for his discovery of the effect now known as embryonic induction, an influence, exercised by various parts of the embryo, that directs the development of groups of cells into particular tissues and organs. During the winter of 1896, while quarantined in a sanitarium recovering from tuberculosis, Spemann read August Weismann's book The Germ Plasm: A Theory of Heredity. He wrote in his autobiography: "I found here a theory of heredity and development elaborated with uncommon perspicacity to its ultimate consequences.....This stimulated experimental work of my own". As a master of micro-surgical technique, beginning with his continuing work on the amphibian eye, Spemann's papers in the early years of the 20th century on this vexed question were to be a great contribution to the development of experimental morphogenesis, causing him to be hailed in some quarters as the true founder of micro-surgery. He succeeded in dividing the cells with a noose of baby hair. Spemann found that one half could indeed form a whole embryo, but observed that the plane of division was crucial. This dispatched the theory of preformation and gave some support to the concept of a morphogenetic field, a concept of which Spemann learned from Paul Alfred Weiss. From 1919 Spemann was Professor of Zoology at the University of Freiburg-im-Breisgau, where he continued his line of enquiry until in 1937 he was relieved of his post to be replaced by one of his first students, Otto Mangold. In 1928 he was the first to perform somatic cell nuclear transfer using amphibian embryos – one of the first moves towards cloning. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1935. His theory of embryonic induction by organisers is described in his book Embryonic Development and Induction (1st printed 1938). ADOLF SPEMANN, publisher of the autobiography, was the author's brother.

LEWIS WOLPERT (1929 – 2021) was a South African-born British developmental biologist, author, and broadcaster. Wolpert was best known for his French flag model of embryonic development, where he used the French flag as a visual aid to explain how embryonic cells interpret genetic code for expressing characteristics of living organisms and explaining how signaling between cells early in morphogenesis could be used to inform cells with the same genetic regulatory network of their position and role. Wolpert was best known for the French flag model of embryonic development, which he put forward in a 1969 paper titled Positional Information and the Spatial Pattern of Cellular Differentiation in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.[8] The model uses the French tricolor flag to visually depict how embryonic cells interpret genetic code to create the same patterns, even when some pieces of the embryo are removed.[9] The model further explains how signaling between cells early in morphogenesis could be used to inform cells with the same genetic regulatory network of their position and role. The model was based on Wolpert's research on sea urchin eggs and provided a framework for research into gastrulation, the embryonic process during which a living organism's body plan is established. Wolpert is credited with the quote: "It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your life." Biologists recognize Wolpert for elaborating and championing the ideas of positional information and positional value: molecular signals and internal cellular responses to them that enable cells to do the right thing in the right place during embryonic development. The essence of these concepts is that there is a dedicated set of molecules for spatial co-ordination of cells, identical across many species and across different developmental stages and tissues. The discovery of Hox gene codes in flies and vertebrates has largely vindicated Wolpert's positional-value concept, while identification of growth-factor morphogens in many species has supported the concept of positional information.

LAURI SAXEN (1927 - 2005) was a Finnish physician, professor and chancellor of the University of Helsinki from 1993 to 1996. He held an additional personal professorship in experimental pathology from 1967 to 1993. He was founder of the Finnish school of developmental biology, focusing on reciprocal inductive interactions during vertebrate organogenesis. His major contributions include 1) the threshold hypothesis of amphibian metamorphosis, 2) the double-gradient hypothesis of primary embryonic induction, 3) the analysis of reciprocal induction during kidney development, 4) the integration of developmental biology with epidemiology, and 5) the maintenance of a national infrastructure for science. MARKETTA KARKINEN-JAASKELAINEN, a colleague of Lauri Saxen.