Hans Meinhardt

Hans Meinhardt is a theoretical developmental biologist working at the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. He has pioneered the use of mathematical modelling of embryonic pattern formation. He received his PhD from the University of Cologne in Physics. For a postdoctoral fellowship, he went to the European High Energy Laboratory CERN at Geneva. By collaborating in an experiment investigating the leptonic Xi-minus decay, he learned to perform computer simulations of complex systems. In 1969, he switched to biology and joined the department of Alfred Gierer at Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology (formerly Virus Research) in Tübingen. He has a long-standing interest in mechanisms of biological pattern formation. In 1982, before molecular approaches were feasible in development biology, he wrote a book, Models of Biological Pattern Formation (Academic Press), in which he correctly predicted many essential steps in development. One of his present interests is to understand the generation of the main body axes of higher organism by starting from the organization of simple radial-symmetric ancestors.