Eric F. Wieschaus

Eric F. Wieschaus (1947- ) American geneticist and Nobel laureate. Wieschaus's pioneering work on the genes controlling the early embryonic development (see Embryology) of the fruit fly provides a basis for future research on the genetic basis of the early embryonic development of more complex organisms, such as humans. For his research on fruit fly genetics, Wieschaus shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with German geneticist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and American geneticist Edward B. Lewis.

Wieschaus was born in South Bend, Indiana. He received a B.S. degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1969 and a Ph.D. degree from Yale University in 1974. From 1975 to 1978 he did postdoctoral work at the University of Zürich in Switzerland. From 1978 to 1980 he pursued research on fruit fly genetics at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, where he collaborated with German geneticist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard on the work that led to their Nobel prize. In 1981 Wieschaus moved back to the United States to take a position as an assistant professor at Princeton University. In 1987 he was promoted to full professor in the Molecular Biology Department.

Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard were both interested in genetics, specifically the embryonic development of Drosophila, the common fruit fly. As with all animals, the fruit fly begins as a fertilized egg (see Fertilization), a single cell. Very quickly, that one cell splits into two cells, then those two split into four cells, and so on. Until there are 16 cells, all cells are undifferentiated—that is, each cell is basically identical. But with the next division, the cells start to specialize, and the embryo becomes segmented. Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard were interested in the part of embryonic development of the fruit fly that is between the fertilized egg and the point at which cell specialization and segmentation of the embryo takes place. The two scientists identified all the genes responsible for the very early part of embryonic development of the fruit fly. They then altered various fruit fly genes and cataloged the mutations (changes) that resulted in the fruit flies. Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard discovered 15 genes involved in the development of the fruit fly embryo from an undifferentiated mass of cells to a segmented, specialized group of cells. These genes could be divided into three distinct groups: group one determined the back from the front of the embryo; group two divided the embryo into segments; and group three caused cells within each segment to be specialized.

Wieschaus continues his work on the genetic development of the fruit fly at Princeton University.