Hilde Mangold *1898–1924

The embryologist and physiologist Hilde Mangold was born in Gotha, Germany, in 1898. During her studies at the University of Frankfurt she was so intrigued by a lecture by Hans Spemann that she decided to follow him to the Zoological Institute in Freiburg. She graduated with a degree in zoology in 1920 and joined Spemann’s laboratory to pursue her doctoral work. The goal of her research was to determine how cell identity is specified during gastrulation by transplanting cells in newt embryos. In 1923 Hilde Mangold published her dissertation on the discovery of the “Speemann-Mangold-Organizer”, a specific group of cells, responsible for gastrulation and demonstrated the effects of embryonic induction. After earning her PhD, she moved to Berlin with her husband Otto Mangold and their son. Sadly, she died shortly afterwards following a gas heater explosion in 1924. Mangold’s disserta-tion was the foundation for her mentor Spemann’s award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1935, as he listed himself as the first author of the disser-tation against Hilde Mangold’s wishes. Although Mangold did not live to receive any prizes or witness the impact of her research, her work undoubtedly laid the groundwork for research into embryonic induction.