Gerd B. Müller (born 1953) is an Austrian biologist who is emeritus professor at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

where he was the head of the Department of Theoretical Biology in the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on vertebrate

limb development Limb development in vertebrates is an area of active research in both developmental and evolutionary biology, with much of the latter work focused on the transition from fin to limb. Limb formation begins in the morphogenetic limb field, as mese ...

, evolutionary novelties,

evo-devo Evolutionary developmental biology (informally, evo-devo) is a field of biological research that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to infer how developmental processes evolved. The field grew from 19th-century beginn ...

theory, and the

Extended Evolutionary Synthesis The extended evolutionary synthesis consists of a set of theoretical concepts argued to be more comprehensive than the earlier modern synthesis of evolutionary biology that took place between 1918 and 1942. The extended evolutionary synthesis wa ...

. He is also concerned with the development of 3D based imaging tools in

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and differentiation of ste ...

Biography

Müller received an M.D. in 1979 and a Ph.D. in zoology in 1985, both from the University of Vienna. He has been a sabbatical fellow at the Department of Developmental Biology,

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, and a second medical school campus in Saint John, New Brunswick. Dalhousie offer ...

, Canada, (1988) and a visiting scholar at the

Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, and received his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

in Anatomy and Embryology in 1989. He is a founding member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research,

Klosterneuburg Klosterneuburg (; frequently abbreviated as Kloburg by locals) is a town in Tulln District in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It has a population of about 27,500. The Klosterneuburg Monastery, which was established in 1114 and soon after giv ...

, Austria, of which he has been President since 1997. Müller is on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Biological Theory where he serves as an associate editor. He is editor-in-chief of the Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology, a book series devoted to theoretical developments in the biosciences, published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publ ...

Scientific contribution

Müller has published on developmental imaging, vertebrate limb development, the origins of phenotypic novelty, EvoDevo theory, and evolutionary theory. With the cell and developmental biologist

Stuart Newman Stuart Alan Newman (born April 4, 1945 in New York City) is a professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY, United States. His research centers around three program areas: cellular and molecular mechan ...

, Müller co-edited the book ''

Origination of Organismal Form ''Origination of Organismal Form: Beyond the Gene in Developmental and Evolutionary Biology'' is an anthology published in 2003 edited by Gerd B. Müller and Stuart A. Newman. The book is the outcome of the 4th Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical ...

'' (MIT Press, 2003). This book on

evolutionary developmental biology Evolutionary developmental biology (informally, evo-devo) is a field of biological research that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to infer how developmental processes evolved. The field grew from 19th-century beginn ...

is a collection of papers on generative mechanisms that were plausibly involved in the origination of disparate body forms during early periods of organismal life. Particular attention is given to

epigenetic In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are " ...

factors, such as physical determinants and environmental parameters, that may have led to the spontaneous emergence of

bodyplan A body plan, ( ), or ground plan is a set of morphological features common to many members of a phylum of animals. The vertebrates share one body plan, while invertebrates have many. This term, usually applied to animals, envisages a "bluep ...

s and organ forms during a period when multicellular organisms had relatively

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

morphologies.

Natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...

acting on variant genotypes is suggested to have "locked in" these bodyplans. Together with

Eva Jablonka Eva Jablonka ( he, חווה יבלונקה) (born 1952) is an Israeli evolutionary theorist and geneticist, known especially for her interest in epigenetic inheritance. Born in 1952 in Poland, she emigrated to Israel in 1957. She is a professo ...

Kevin Laland Kevin Neville Laland (born 5 October 1962) is an English evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Educated at the University of Southampton and University College ...

, Alex Mesoudi, Stuart Newman,

Massimo Pigliucci Massimo Pigliucci (; born January 16, 1964) is Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York, former co-host of the '' Rationally Speaking Podcast'', and former editor in chief for the online magazine ''Scientia Salon''. He is a critic ...

Kim Sterelny Kim Sterelny (born 1950) is an Australian philosopher and professor of philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. He is the winner of several international prizes ...

, John Odling-Smee, Tobias Uller, as well as

Denis Noble Denis Noble (born 16 November 1936) is a British biologist who held the Burdon Sanderson Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford from 1984 to 2004 and was appointed Professor Emeritus and co-Director of Computational P ...

and others, Gerd Müller is an advocate of an alternative evolutionary framework, one version of which has been termed the

(EES).Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B. Müller (eds.). Evolution – The Extended Synthesis. MIT Press 2010Kevin N. Laland, Tobias Uller, Marcus W. Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd B. Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka, John Odling-Smee. The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions. The Royal Society Publishing. Proceedings B. Published 5 August 2015
/ref> In contrast to the

Modern Synthesis Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely: * Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and s ...

, the population dynamical model of evolution established in the early twentieth century that had concentrated on the processes of variation and adaptation, the focus of the EES is on the generative properties of evolution, integrating conceptual developments from evolutionary developmental biology,

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

, and other fields. It differs from the standard theory in its inclusion of the constructive processes in development, the consideration of reciprocal dynamics of causation, and the relinquishment of a predominantly genetic explanation. A range of novel predictions and testable empirical projects result from the EES.K. Laland, T. Uller, M. Feldman, K. Sterelny, G. B. Müller, A. Moczek, E. Jablonka, J. Odling-Smee, G. A. Wray, H. E. Hoekstra, D. J. Futuyma, R. E. Lenski, T. F. Mackay, D. Schluter, J. E. Strassmann: ''Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?'' In: ''Nature.'' Vol. 514, No. 7521, Oct. 2014, , S. 161–164, doi:10.1038/514161a, .

Publications

Scientific papers
ResearchGate
Edited books
''Evolution – The Extended Synthesis'' (2010, together with Massimo Pigliucci)''Modeling Biology'' (2007, together with M. Laubichler)''Environment, Development, and Evolution: Towards a Synthesis'' (2004, together with Brian K. Hall and Roy D. Pearson)
* ''Origination of Organismal Form'' (2003, together with Stuart Newman) Selected articles * Axel Lange and Gerd B. Müller.

Polydactyly Polydactyly or polydactylism (), also known as hyperdactyly, is an anomaly in humans and animals resulting in supernumerary fingers and/or toes. Polydactyly is the opposite of oligodactyly (fewer fingers or toes). Signs and symptoms In human ...

in Development, Inheritance, and Evolution. Q. Rev. Biol. Vol. 92, No. 1, Mar. 2017, pp. 1–38. doi: 10.1086/690841. * Favé M-J, Johnson RA, Cover S, Handschuh S, Metscher BD, Müller GB, Gopalan S, Abouheif E. 2015. Past climate change on Sky Islands drives novelty in a core developmental gene network and its phenotype. BMC Evolutionary Biology:1–21. doi: 10.1186/s12862-015-0448-4. * Laland KN, Uller T, Feldman MW, Sterelny K, Müller GB, Moczek A, Jablonka E, Odling-Smee J. 2015. The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Its structure, assumptions and predictions. Proc Biol Sci 282. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1019. * Noble D, Jablonka E, Joyner MJ, Müller GB, Omholt SW. 2014. Evolution evolves: Physiology returns to centre stage. J Physiol (Lond) 592:2237–2244. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2014.273151. * Mayer C, Metscher BD, Müller GB, Mitteroecker P. 2014. Studying developmental variation with geometric morphometric image analysis (GMIA). PLoS ONE 9:e115076. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0115076. * Lange A, Nemeschkal HL, Müller GB. 2014. Biased polyphenism in polydactylous cats carrying a single point mutation: The Hemingway model for digit novelty. Evol Biol 41:262–275. doi:10.1007/s11692-013-9267-y. * Čapek D, Metscher BD, Müller GB. 2013. Thumbs down: A molecular-morphogenetic approach to avian digit homology. J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol 322:1–12. doi: 10.1002/jez.b.22545. * Peterson T, Müller GB. 2013. What is evolutionary novelty? Process versus character based definitions. J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol 320:345–350. doi: 10.1002/jez.b.22508. Epub 2013 Jun 21. * Metscher BD, Müller GB. 2011. MicroCT for molecular imaging: Quantitative visualization of complete three-dimensional distributions of gene products in embryonic limbs. Dev Dyn 240:2301–2308. doi: 10.1002/dvdy.22733. * Müller GB. 2008. Evo-devo as a discipline. In: Minelli A, Fusco G, editors. Evolving Pathways: Key Themes in Evolutionary Developmental Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Müller GB. 2007. Evo-devo: Extending the evolutionary synthesis. Nat Rev Genet 8:943–949. doi:10.1038/nrg2219. * Müller GB, Newman SA. 2005. The innovation triad: An EvoDevo agenda. J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol 304:487–503. doi: 10.1002/jez.b.21081.

External links

Personal homepage Gerd B. MüllerDepartment of Theoretical Biology, University of ViennaKonrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research

Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? (2014)

Modernizing the Evolutionary Synthesis. Science 321 (2008)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Gerd B. 1953 births Extended evolutionary synthesis Theoretical biologists University of Vienna alumni Academic staff of the University of Vienna Harvard University staff Evolutionary biologists Living people