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Walter Jakob Gehring

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Nationality
  
Swiss

Name
  
Walter Gehring


Fields
  
Developmental biology

Walter Jakob Gehring wwwbiozentrumunibaschuploadspics20100104W

Born
  
20 March 1939Zurich, Switzerland (
1939-03-20
)

Institutions
  
University of Zurich, Yale Medical School, Yale University, Biozentrum University of Basel

Died
  
May 29, 2014, Basel, Switzerland

Books
  
Master control genes in development and evolution, The Harvey Lecture

Awards
  
Gairdner Foundation International Award

Similar People
  
Rudiger Wehner, Eric F Wieschaus, Christiane Nusslein‑Volhard, Edward B Lewis, Alexander F Schier

Walter Jakob Gehring (1939 – 29 May 2014) was a Swiss developmental biologist who was a professor at the Biozentrum Basel of the University of Basel, Switzerland. He obtained his PhD at the University of Zurich in 1965 and after two years as a research assistant of Professor Ernst Hadorn he joined Professor Alan Garen's group at Yale University in New Haven as a postdoctoral fellow.

Walter Jakob Gehring Walter Jakob Gehring Wikipedia

In 1969 he was appointed as an associate professor at the Yale Medical School and 1972 he returned to Switzerland to become a professor of developmental biology and genetics at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. He was Secretary General of the European Molecular Biology Organization, President of the International Society of Developmental Biologists, a Foreign Member of the National Academy of the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and Sweden.

Walter Gehring has mainly been involved in studies of Drosophila genetics and development, particularly in the analysis of cell determination in the embryo and transdetermination of imaginal discs. He has made significant contributions to the study of the heat shock genes, various transposons and the homeotic genes which are involved in the genetic control of development.

In 1983 Gehring and his collaborators (William McGinnis, Michael S. Levine, Ernst Hafen, Richard Garber, Atsushi Kuroiwa, Johannes Wirz), discovered the homeobox, a DNA segment characteristic for homeotic genes which is not only present in arthropods and their ancestors, but also in vertebrates including man.

Gehring has also been involved in the development and application of enhancer trapping methods. He and his collaborators have identified PAX6 as a master control gene for eye development, which led to a new theory about the monophyletic origin of the eyes in evolution.

Awards

  • 1987 Gairdner Foundation International Award
  • 1987 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine
  • 1996 Awarded the Otto Warburg Medal
  • 1997 Awarded the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology.
  • 2000 Received the Kyoto Prize for Basic Science.
  • 2002 Received the Balzan Prize for Developmental Biology.
  • 2003 A.O. Kovalevsky Medal
  • References

    Walter Jakob Gehring Wikipedia


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