LIFE profile

Portrait of the founder of ecology Ernst Haeckel

Image: Archiv Hoßfeld

Natural sciences in Jena have a long tradition. Specifically the disciplines botany, ecology and microbiology have a long-standing history in the science location Jena.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the botanist Matthias Jacob Schleiden was the first to describe cells in living plants, and with this became a pioneer of the modern cell theory. His collaborative efforts together with Carl Zeiss and Ernst Abbe built the basis for a lasting and strong connection  between the life sciences and the optical industry in Jena, which still is the driving force for innovations in the ‘science city’.

The term ‘Ecology’ was, in fact, born in Jena. With it, in 1866, the evolution scientist Ernst Haeckel defined a new sub-discipline within biology, which addresses the interactions between organisms and their environment. The chemical basis of such interactions is explored in the field of Chemical Ecology, which also is rooted in Jena by studies of the botanist Ernst Stahl.

The microbiologist Hans Knöll dedicated himself to drug discovery and production, in the early twentieth century. He was particularly interested in the production of penicillin and the tuberculosis vaccine BCG. The BCG institute that he founded in 1950 – later the Central Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (ZIMET) and now the Hans Knöll Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (HKIExternal link) – was the first building at the Beutenberg campusExternal link, which is the central location for research and science in Jena today.