Background

Alfred Kuhn was born Alfred Richard Wilhelm Kuhn on April 25, 1885, in Baden-Baden, Germany.

Education

Kuhn began to study natural science in 1904 at the University of Freiburg, where he studied mainly with the zoologist August Weismann and the physiologist Johannes ton Kries. He received his doctorate in 1908 with a dissertation entitled Die Entwicklung der Keimzellen in den parthenogenetischen Generationen der Cladoceren Daphnia pulex De Geer und Polyphemus pediculus De Geer.

Career

In 1910 Kuhn qualified as a lecturer in zoology at the University of Freiburg, and in 1914 he was named extraordinary professor. After World War I Kuhn worked for a short time under Karl Heider at the zoology laboratory of the University of Berlin. In 1920 he succeeded E. Ehlers in the chair of zoology at the University of Göttingen. He developed a zoology laboratory at Göttingen employing the most up-to-date concepts, and through his stimulating teaching and his widespread research activity, he attracted a large number of students to it.

In 1937 he was appointed the second director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem, where he was able to devote himself completely to research. In 1951 the institute was moved to Tübingen - with the new name of the Max Planck Institute for Biology - and until 1958 Kuhn was an administrative director of the much-expanded organization. Kuhn continued to work intensively in his old laboratory as a scientific member of the institute until his death. From 1946 to 1951 he was also a professor of zoology and director of the zoology laboratory at the University of Tübingen.

One of his early works were Anleitung zu tierphysiologischen Grundversuchen and Die Orientierung der Tiere im Raum. His knowledge of zoology is illustrated by his outstanding Vorlesungen über Entwicklungsphysiologie, which appeared in a second edition in 1965. These lectures were preceded by two textbooks - Grundriss der allgemeinen Zoologie, and Grundriss der Vererbungslehre. The former work, the so-called “small Kuhn,” is in contrast to Kuhn’s contribution to the general section of the Lehrbuch der Zoologie by Claus, Grobben, and Kuhn.

Kuhn took a lively interest in the history of biology. He was the author of Anton Dohrn und die Zoologie seiner Zeit, contributed to the collection Biologie der Romantik, and wrote biographies of Gregor Mendel and Karl Ernst von Baer.

Achievements

• Alfred Kuhn went down in history as a distinguished zoologist and geneticist, who is best remembered for his research on genetics and physiology of development. He integrated experiments on development and heredity. He proposed a model of the gene-enzyme relation, which is important for the connection or mapping of genes to phenotypes. Kuhn pursued detailed questions concerning only a few species, yet hardly anyone else could rival his grasp of the entire field of genetics and developmental physiology. His lecture notes on developmental biology were a standard textbook.
  
  He received the Copernicus Prize in 1942, the Harnack medal in 1965, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1966. In 1953 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Grundriss der iranischen Philologie 1969
  • Die orientierung der tiere im raum 1919
  • Grundriss der allgemeinen Zoologie 1939
  • Vorlesungen über Entwicklungsphysiologie 1955

Views

From the start of his career, Kuhn’s scientific work encompassed very varied fields. In Freiburg, he simultaneously conducted investigations in embryology, cytology, and the physiology of sensation. These included studies on the ontogenesis and phylogenesis of the hydroids; the development of the cladocerans; processes of division among various protozoans, the physiology of the reptilian ear labyrinth, the spinal cord of the dove, and reflexes in crabs. At Göttingen, Kuhn also studied the physiology of sensation - the color vision of bees and cuttlefish.

Kuhn soon concentrated his efforts almost entirely on investigating questions of genetics and early development, occasionally in collaboration with Karl Henke. He examined the flour moth Ephestia kuehniella Zeller, which became the major object of study in genetics after Drosophila; later they were joined by the microlepidoptera Ptychopoda seriata. The formation of patterns and the effect of genes were the central problems of Kuhn’s research. Applying the genetic and developmental approaches to the design patterns on butterfly wings soon led to innovative concepts in genetics. Further investigations of eye color mutants resulted in the inclusion of the ommochrome pigments in the chain of biochemical processes set off by the genes. As a result of Kuhn’s collaborative work with Adolf Butenandt and his laboratory; the concept emerged that was to be the starting point for modern biochemical genetics - that genes achieve their effects by means of specific enzymes.

Membership

Kuhn was a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin, the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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  Member

  Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences , Germany

• Member

  German Academy of Sciences at Berlin , Germany

• Member

  Göttingen Academy of Sciences , Germany

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  Honorary member

  German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , Germany

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  Member

  American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

Connections

In 1914 Kuhn married Margaret Geiges, the daughter of the artist Fritz Geiges. The marriage remained childless.

Spouse:

Margaret Geiges

father-in-law:

Fritz Geiges

teacher:

August Weismann

teacher:

Johannes ton Kries

colleague:

Karl Heider

colleague:

Adolf Butenandt

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Volume 7
  1973