The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1995
Born: 20 October 1942, Magdeburg, Germany
Affiliation at the time of the award: Max-Planck-Institut für Entwicklungsbiologie, Tübingen, Germany
Prize motivation: “for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development”
Work
Among more advanced organisms, life begins when a fertilized egg divides and forms new cells which, in turn, also divide. Initially these cells appear identical, but in time, they begin to change. Some cells go to make up the heart, others nerve paths, and still others strands of hair, for example. Genes regulate this process. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus studied the development of fruit flies and, around 1980, succeeded in identifying and classifying the 15 genes that direct the cells to form a new fly.
