Reinhard F. Stocker

Reinhard F. Stocker (born 1944) is a Swiss biologist. He pioneered the analysis of the sense of smell and taste in higher animals, using the fly Drosophila melanogaster as a study case. He provided a detailed account of the anatomy and development of the olfactory system, in particular across metamorphosis, for which he received the Théodore-Ott-Prize of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007, and pioneered the use of larval Drosophila for the brain and behavioural sciences. Life, education and scientific career Reinhard Felix Stocker was born on March 12, 1944, in Basel, Switzerland as the middle of three sons to Heidi and Emil Stocker, a chemist with J.R. Geigy AG, Basel. He grew up in Riehen near Basel and received his Matura in 1963 at the Realgymnasium Basel. In 1963 Stocker enrolled as student of Zoology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He received his PhD with the grade summa cum laude in 1972 for a thesis featuring an electron-microscopy investigation of the development of the ventral nerve cord of the ant Myrmica laevinodis during metamorphosis, supervised by Hans Nüesch. There followed two studies with Hans Nüesch, likewise using electron microscopy, on how the nerve-muscle contacts develop in pupal and early adult stages of the butterfly Antheraea polyphemus. Inspired by breakthrough insights into how genes orchestrate development in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, Stocker turned his attention to the role of the Antennapedia gene in neurogenetic development. The Antennapedia gene is one of a family of homeotic genes that determine the identity of body segments. In 1971, Postlethwait and Schneiderman (Devel. Biol. 25, 606-640) had discovered that in mutants of this gene the appendages of one of the head segments develop not as an antenna, as in the wild-type fly, but as a thoracic leg. As a post-doc at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA (1974 to 1975), and mentored by John S. Edwards, Gerold Schubiger, John Palka and James W. Truman, Stocker revealed how this change in segment identity – or the surgical displacement of appendages – affects the connections of sensory neurons from the appendage towards the central brain.