Thanks to him, we understood cell division: Who is Theodor Boveri?

(1862-1915) German cell scientist. He conducted pioneering research on cell division and the properties of chromosomes. Theodor Heinrich Boveri was born on October 12, 1862 in Bamberg. His father was a physician. He completed his primary and secondary education in the city where he was born and in Nurenberg. He studied anatomy at the University of Munich, which he entered in 1881, after first studying history and philosophy. He received his medical degree in 1885. In the same year, he joined the Munich Institute of Zoology, directed by Richard Hertwig (1850-1937). Hertwig had a significant influence on his orientation to cellology. After 1887 he taught comparative anatomy and zoology. In 1893 he became professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Würzburg, where he continued his studies until his death. He died in Würzburg on 15 October 1915.

When Boveri started his studies in 1885, it was known to some extent that egg and sperm cells play a role in fertilization, the importance of chromosomes in the phenomenon of heredity, the existence of a separate chromosome number specific to each species, and the meiosis in sex cells. However, this information was only the first step towards understanding the inheritance mechanism. Like his colleague Beneden, Boveri began by examining a species of intestinal worm (Ascaris megalocephala), which has 2 or 4 large chromosomes, depending on the genus, and is therefore easy to examine.

In 1887, he showed that the centrosome, which has very important functions during mitosis or meiosis, at the same time as but independently of Beneden, does not disappear after mitosis. It is Boveri who calls this polar body the "centrosum".

He also revealed that chromosomes, which can only be observed during division, are actually continuous structures, so they can be a factor in the continuity of heredity. Boveri confirmed Beneden's findings that sex cells participate in the formation of new cells with an equal number of chromosomes, reducing the number of chromosomes before fertilization by half. In addition, he found that each chromosome carries certain factors, not all of the heredity characteristics and that the cytoplasm around the cell nucleus can have an effect on the chromosomes.