Frans Alfons Janssens ( Sint-Niklaas 23 July 1865 -

Wichelen Wichelen () is a municipality located in the Denderstreek in the Belgian province of East Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns of , and Wichelen proper. In 2021, Wichelen had a total population of 11,690. The total area is 22.87 k ...

, 8 October 1924) was Catholic priest and the discoverer of crossing-over of genes during

meiosis Meiosis (; , since it is a reductional division) is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms that produces the gametes, such as sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately r ...

, which he called 'chiasmatypie'. His work was continued by the Nobel Prize winner

Thomas Hunt Morgan Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role that ...

to develop the theory of genetic linkage. Frans Janssens was the son of Theodoor Janssens, a politician. He was ordained as a priest in 1886 and obtained a PhD in Natural Science with the highest honors and a scholarship to attend many prestigious foreign laboratories. Janssens then worked with Professor Kjeldahl at the Hansen Institute Carlsberg Brewery in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and was a teacher at the St. Lawrence Brewery School in Ghent. In 1896, he became a professor at the Faculty of Sciences for the Catholic University of Leuven, as a chair in microscopy and later in

cytology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

, succeeding Jean-Baptiste Carnoy in the chair. Janssens was also president of the Societé Belge de Biologie and a Canon (priest) at the Sint-Baafskathedraal in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

. In 1953, the Catholic University of Leuven founded the 'F.A.Janssens Genetics Laboratory', in recognition for the scientific merits of Frans Alfons Janssens. The laboratory is known as the 'Center for Microbial and Plant Genetics'.

External links

F.A. Janssens op kuleuven.be

Frans Janssens
i
ODIS - Online Database for Intermediary Structures
Belgian biologists Catholic University of Leuven (1834–1968) faculty Canons (priests) 1865 births 1924 deaths {{Belgium-RC-clergy-stub