biography
pronunciation:
[loeb, lohb]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1859–1924)
|
| biography:
| Physiologist, born in Mayen, Germany. He taught and performed research in Germany (1886–91), where his controversial research on caterpillars (1888) demonstrated that animals, like plants, possess similar mechanistic physiological responses (tropisms) to environmental stimuli. In 1899 he discovered artificial parthenogenesis in sea-urchin eggs. Frustrated by Bismarck's oppressive regime, he went to the USA to teach at Bryn Mawr College (1891–2) in Pennsylvania. He joined the University of Chicago (1892–1902) and the University of California, Berkeley (1902–10) before becoming a physiology professor at the Rockefeller Institute (1910–24). His studies on protein chemistry (1918–24) revealed that proteins can react as acids or bases. His philosophy of psychological and physiological tropisms is summarized in his most-read book, The Mechanistic Conception of Life (1912). |
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