Walter J. Gehring is Professor Emeritus of Developmental Biology and Genetics at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland. He has devoted himself to the study of Drosophila genetics and development, with particular emphasis on the analysis of cell determination and differentiation in the embryo and transdetermination of imaginal discs.
He has made significant contributions to the study of heat shock genes, various transposons and homeotic genes involved in the genetic control of development. With his team, he discovered the homeobox, a DNA segment characteristic of homeotic genes that is present not only in insects and their ancestors, but also in vertebrates, including man. Walter Gehring contributed to the development of theenhancer-trap technique. With his collaborators, he identified Pax-6 as the universal master gene for eye development. The presence of Pax-6 in all bilaterian animals argues for a monophyletic origin of the different eye types.
