Embryo Project Encyclopedia

German embryologist Viktor Hamburger came to the US in 1932 with a fellowship provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. Hamburger started his research in Frank Rattray Lillie's laboratory at the University of Chicago. His two-year work on the development of the central nervous system (CNS) in chick embryos was crystallized in his 1934 paper, "The Effects of Wing Bud Extirpation on the Development of the Central Nervous System in Chick Embryos," published in The Journal of Experimental Zoology. Hamburger was able to use the microsurgical techniques that he had learned from Hans Spemann to show how wing buds influence the development of the CNS in chick embryos. This paper is one of several among Hamburger's important studies on chick embryos and represents the empirical and theoretical cornerstone for his further research on central-peripheral relations in the development of the nervous system.

An important question throughout the history of embryology is whether the formation of a biological structure is predetermined or shaped by its environment. If both intrinsic and environmental controls occur, how exactly do the two processes coordinate in crafting specific forms and functions? When Viktor Hamburger started his PhD study in embryology in the 1920s, few neuroembryologists were investigating how the central neurons innervate peripheral organs. As Hamburger began his research, he had no clue that central-peripheral relations in the development of the central nervous system (CNS) would become one of his major interests for the next seventy-five years. In fact, this research trajectory would lead him to discover programmed cell death as a pivotal mechanism mediating central-peripheral relations, as well as to Nobel-Prize-winning work on nerve growth factors (NGF).