About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Klaus Kalthoff is Professor and Chairman of the Section for Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology at The University of Texas at Austin. Born and raised in Germany, he studied biology at the universities of Erlangen, Hamburg, and Freiburg. He received his Ph.D. degree (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1971 from the University of Freiburg, where he completed his dissertation on pattern formation in insect embryos under the direction of Klaus Sander. Subsequent work done by Kalthoff and coworkers, also at Freiburg, showed that eggs of midges contain ribonucleoprotein particles acting as anterior determinants: they are localized near the anterior pole of the egg and direct the formation of anterior body parts. Kalthoff also discovered that damage from ultraviolet light to certain insect eggs is reversible in a catalyzed reaction that depends on light of longer wavelength. He was awarded the Prize of the Scientific Society of Freiburg in 1975.

Kalthoff moved to Austin in 1978, where he and his coworkers characterized the RNA moiety of the anterior determinants in Chironomus samoensis as small, polyadenylated, and cytoplasmic. He is author or co-author of numerous articles in scientific books and journals, including Development, Developmental Biology, Nature, Photochemistry and Photobiology, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. He is an Honorable Guest Member of the Arthropodan Embryology Society of Japan. Kalthoff teaches courses in developmental biology and human biology. He won the College of Natural Science Teaching Excellence Award in 2000.