Post-War Biologists: Theodor Boveri

There have been many biologists throughout the years that studied genetics and there are more to come. Theodor Boveri is one of these biologists. Theodor was born on October 12th, 1862 in Bamberg, Germany (Inbar Maayan). He died at the age of 53 on October 15th, 1915 in Wurzburg, Germany (Inbar Maayan). The life expectancy during this time period was 40 to 50 years of age (Max Roser). Bonveri later got married to an American biologist named Marcella O’Grrady in 1897 (Editors). They had a daughter named Margret Bonveri who later became one of the best post-war journalists in germany (Editors). Essentially, Theodor Boveri is known for his discovery of the centrosome and the embryonic development (Editors). A centrosome can only be found in eukaryotic cells (Battista). Centrosomes are used during cell division (Battista). Embryonic development starts with fertilizing an egg cell by a sperm cell (Campbell). Boveri started making these discoveries while experimenting with sea urchins (Campbell). Theodor Boveri also helped discovered the process of meiosis and the chromosome theory with Walter Sutton (Venter). Meiosis is when a single cell divides into two to make four cells (Public Engagement). These cells only have half the chromosomes

We first did not know much about genetics. All people really knew was that the offspring would look like the parents but could not really explain why. Theodor Bonveri and other scientists have done some research and experiments to explain how people get certain traits and explain their genetic codes. There are many new discoveries about genetics in the past 100 years. In 1931, Harriet Creighton discovered that the “genetic recombination is caused by a physical exchange of chromosomal pieces, as shown in corn” (Hales). In 1970, “the first restriction enzyme is purified” (Hales). In 1976, the first cloning of an animal happens with a sheep and they name it “dolly the sheep”