FREY-WYSSLING, ALBERT F(RIEDRICH)

born Nov. 8, 1900, Kssnacht, Switz. Swiss botanist and pioneer of submicroscopic morphology who helped to initiate the study later known as molecular biology. Frey-Wyssling was educated at the Federal Institute of Technology, Zrich, at the University of Jena, and at the Sorbonne. From 1928 to 1932 he was a plant physiologist at Medan, Sumatra. He became a lecturer at the Federal Institute of Technology (1932), served as a professor in the department of botany and plant physiology (193870), and was also rector of the institution (195761). In 1938 he began his studies in submicroscopic morphology, using polarizing microscopy and other optical techniques to obtain indirect evidence concerning submicroscopic structures. He held that the studies of the histologists (those who deal with structures discernible through the microscope) and of the physiological chemists, who study submicroscopic structures, would eventually be unified on the level of macromolecular chemistry. This subject, later known as molecular biology, became a practical reality with the application of the electron microscope in biological research (1940). Frey-Wyssling found that the basic concepts he evolved from his indirect methods were corroborated by the direct imaging of submicroscopic structures with the electron microscope. He wrote several books based on his submicroscopic studies.