Hugo Marie de Vries Biography

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World of Biology on Hugo Marie de Vries

Hugo Marie de Vries was a Dutch botanist and geneticist who studied mutations in plant physiology and furthered the work of Gregor Mendel on the laws of heredity. The foremost botanist of his time, his theories provided the impetus for Charles Darwin's work on evolution.

De Vries was born on February 16, 1848 in Haarlem, the Netherlands, the son of a Dutch Prime Minister. He studied medicine at Heidelberg and Leiden, graduating in 1870. De Vries taught at the newly established University of Amsterdam from 1871 until 1875 and became the first lecturer in plant physiology in 1877 following a brief period working with the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture in Wurzburg from 1875 until 1877. He was made an assistant professor of botany in 1878 and a full professor in 1881 and taught at the University of Amsterdam until his retirement in 1918. Awarded eleven honorary degrees, he actively contributed to scientific research until he died on May 21, 1935 near Amsterdam.

De Vries first developed an interest in genetics in 1886 when he discovered variations in some specimens of plants. He devoted himself to cultivation of various types of evening primrose (Oenothera lamarckiana) and research into the origin and history of the European strain of the species. De Vries experimented with plant breeding which led him to rediscover the laws of heredity first set forth by in 1866 by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel. He further developed Mendelian genetics when he found that new varieties of evening primrose occurred spontaneously and recurred in subsequent generations. De Vries termed these new varieties variations. He later coined the term mutations and divided the mutations into progressive mutants which contribute useful characteristics to the evolution of the species and retrogressive mutants which contribute useless or harmful characteristics. He also postulated that new species originated from successful mutations. The term mutation is used today to refer to any change in genetic material, whether it be to genes or chromosomes.

In 1889, De Vries published Intracellular Pangenesis which theorized that hereditary traits in plants are carried by "pangenes." His major work Die Mutationstheorie (translated into English as The Mutation Theory) which summarized his theories on heredity and mutations was published in 1901-1903. The latter was instrumental in establishing Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

De Vries other contributions to botany include studies of the physiology of plant cells. He demonstrated plasmolysis, the shrinkage of protoplasm in a cell caused by loss of water through osmosis. He developed methods for studying turgor properties of plant cells. He also showed that the plasma membrane surrounding a plant cell is semi-permeable and permits the passage of small molecules.