Hans Meinhardt (1938–2016)

The famous theoretical biologist Hans Meinhardt died on 11 February 2016 in Tübingen. Meinhardt is well known for mathematical models of biological pattern formation, which he applied to a wide range of problems in developmental biology such as body axis formation, segmentation, limb patterning, regeneration, phyllotaxis and surface patterns — most famously the color patterns on seashells. Hans Meinhardt studied physics at the University of Cologne. For his PhD, on ß-decay, he worked at the cyclotron of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg. Subsequently, he went to CERN for a three year postdoc where he collaborated in experiments studying the decay rate of Xi-minus particles. He found his time in highenergy physics exciting, but ultimately was unsatisfi ed. Experimental work was so intense that there was not enough time to deeply understand the underlying theory. During his time in Cologne, Meinhardt had seen the beginnings of the Institute of Genetics, the fi rst institute at a German university that was exclusively dedicated to research in molecular biology. The theoretical physicist and founder of molecular phage research Max Delbrück was a co-founder of the Institute and, at the opening ceremony in 1962, Niels Bohr (one of Delbrück’s mentors) held the lecture “Light and life revisited”, which Meinhardt attended. Thus, he was well aware of the molecular revolution in biology, and decided to enter this fi eld. Tübingen was a particularly attractive location for this, as there were three Max Planck Institutes with biological research topics. Meinhardt was fi rst attracted by work at the Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics, where the Reichhardt group was successfully using theoretical modeling to explain visual orientation in fl ies and other invertebrates. However, as there was no opening with this group, he decided to join the group of Alfred Gierer. Like Delbrück, Gierer was also a theoretical physicist and Obituary