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Protoplasma (2012) 249:11631172 DOI 10.1007/s00709-012-0406-6
REVIEW ARTICLE
Eduard Strasburger (18441912): founder of modern plant cell biology
Dieter Volkmann & Frantiek Baluka & Diedrik Menzel
Received: 28 February 2012 /Accepted: 25 March 2012 /Published online: 29 April 2012 # Springer-Verlag 2012
Abstract Eduard Strasburger, director of the Botany Institute and the Botanical Garden at the University of Bonn from 1881 to 1912, was one of the most admirable scientists in the field of plant biology, not just as the founder of modern plant cell biology but in addition as an excellent teacher who strongly believed in education through science. He contributed to plant cell biology by discovering the discrete stages of karyokinesis and cytokinesis in algae and higher plants, describing cytoplasmic streaming in different systems, and reporting on the growth of the pollen tube into the embryo sac and guidance of the tube by synergides. Strasburger raised many problems which are hot spots in recent plant cell biology, e.g., structure and function of the plasmodesmata in relation to phloem loading (Strasburger cells) and signaling, mechanisms of cell plate formation, vesicle trafficking as a basis for most important developmental processes, and signaling related to fertilization.
Keywords Eduard Strasburger . Cell polarity . Cytokinesis . Cytoplasmic streaming . Fertilization . Karyokinesis .
Plant cell biology . Strasburger cells
Introduction
Eduard Strasburgers life (18441912) and scientific work distinguishes him not just as the founder of modern plant cell biology but also as an excellent teacher who strongly
believed in education through science and who, as a scientist, always took into consideration the applicability and transfer of knowledge to neighboring scientific fields like medicine and pharmacology, and even to industry. Therefore, he exercised his profession in a manner we today regard as a state-of-the-art performance, more than 100 years later.
He was born on 1st February 1844 in Warsaw, when the city was under Russian governance and when society in Lower Silesia was shaken by the preindustrial revolution (Weberaufstand: rage against the machine). At that time, Heinrich Heine, the German poet, published Deutschland Ein Wintermrchen (Germanywinter fairy tale), denouncing the social economic situation in Germany in his typical ironic manner. In those days, higher education, notably science and research at universities, was clearly restricted to the upper class and...