Frans Alfons Janssens, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetFrans Alfons Janssens
Belgian biologist and university teacher (1865-1924)
Date of Birth: 
About Frans Alfons Janssens
- Frans Alfons Janssens (Sint-Niklaas 23 July 1865 - Wichelen, 8 October 1924) was Catholic priest and the discoverer of crossing-over of genes during meiosis, which he called 'chiasmatypie'.
- His work was continued by the Nobel Prize winner Thomas Hunt Morgan 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 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, 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. 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'.
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