Embryo Project Encyclopedia Articles

Hilde Proscholdt Mangold was a doctoral student at the Zoological Institute at the University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany, from 1920-1923. Mangold conducted research for her dissertation 'On the Induction of Embryonic Primordia by Implantation of Organizers from Different Species' ('Ueber Induktion von Embryonanlagen durch Implantation artfremder Organisatoren'), under the guidance of Hans Spemann, a professor of zoology at the University of Freiburg. The dissertation was the culmination of five experiments on three species of newt embryos, of the genus Triton (presently, Triturus), performed during the summers of 1921 and 1922, which resulted in a confirmation of Spemann's organizer concept. Spemann and Mangold published the dissertation in a 1924 edition of Roux's Archives for Microscopic Anatomy and Developmental Mechanics (Roux's Archiv fur Mikroskopische Anatomie und Entwicklungsmechanik)."

Wilhelm Roux was an influential figure in the early history of experimental embryology. Although he originally studied medicine, he was invited to be a Privatdozentur, or unsalaried lecturer, at the Anatomical Institute in Breslau (Wroclaw), Poland, in 1879. He spent the next ten years at this institute, working his way from Dozent to associate professor and finally, in 1889, to director for his own institute, Institut für Entwicklungsgeschichte, or Institute for Developmental History and Mechanics. It was here that he performed what is perhaps his most famous series of experiments on green frog eggs in 1888 and published in Virchows Archiv, which he titled "Beiträge zur Entwicklungsmechanik des Embryo. Über die künstliche Hervorbringung halber Embryonen durch Zerstörung einer der beiden ersten Furchungskugeln, sowie über die Nachentwickelung (Postgeneration) der fehlenden Körperhälfte."