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Walther FlemmingGerman biologist, histologist and founder of cytogenetics
Date of Birth: 21.04.1843
Country:  Germany |
Content:
Biography of Walter Flemming
Walter Flemming was a German biologist, histologist, and founder of cytogenetics. He was born on April 21, 1943, in Sachsenberg, a small town in Mecklenburg, Germany. He was the fifth child and only son of psychiatrist Carl Friedrich Flemming (1799-1880) and his second wife, Auguste Winter. Flemming received his primary education at the Gymnasium der Residenzstadt in Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg, where he became friends with engineer, writer, and poet Heinrich Seidel, who would remain his lifelong friend. Flemming studied medicine at Göttingen, Tübingen, Berlin, and the University of Rostock, where he graduated in 1868 after passing the state examination. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, he served as a military physician.
Contributions to Cytology
Flemming was one of the pioneers of cytology. Using newly invented aniline dyes, he was able to identify a structure that strongly absorbed basic dyes and named it chromatin. Flemming determined that chromatin correlated with thread-like structures within the cell nucleus called chromosomes (meaning colored bodies in Greek), which were later named by the German anatomist and histologist Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer (1841-1923). Belgian scientist Edouard Van Beneden (1846-1910) also independently conducted research in this area. Flemming studied the process of cell division and the distribution of chromosomes in daughter nuclei, which he named mitosis, from the Greek word for "thread." He used the fins and gills of salamanders and their larvae as a source of biological material to study mitosis, both in natural conditions and in stained preparations. The results of his observations were first published in 1878 and later appeared in his seminal work "Zellsubstanz, Kern und Zelltheilung" in 1882. Flemming was not familiar with the works on heredity by Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), so he did not see the connection between his observations and genetic inheritance, and it would be more than twenty years before Flemming's research was properly recognized. His discoveries of mitosis and chromosomes are considered one of the 100 most important scientific discoveries of all time and one of the 10 most important discoveries in cell biology.
Later Life and Legacy
Flemming taught at Charles University in Prague from 1873 to 1876 and then accepted a position as a professor of anatomy at the University of Kiel in 1876. He later became the director of the Anatomical Institute and held this position until his death. Walter Flemming passed away on August 4, 1905, at the age of 62.
The German Society for Cell Biology named the Walter Flemming Medal in his honor.
