Hilde Mangold

Who was Hilde Mangold?

Hilde Mangold was a German embryologist who was best known for her 1923 dissertation which was the foundation for her mentor, Hans Spemann's, 1935 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the embryonic organizer, "one of the very few doctoral theses in biology that have directly resulted in the awarding of a Nobel Prize". The general effect she demonstrated is known as embryonic induction, that is, the capacity of some cells to direct the developmental trajectory of other cells. Induction remains a fundamental concept and area of ongoing research in the field.