Otto Frankel - University Education

University Education

The end of school coincided with the end of World War I, when there was little chance of a young man without military service being admitted to the University of Vienna. However, under Otto's leadership, a group of young people took over a disused military laboratory, got a copy of the practical course work from the Chemical Institute of the University, worked through it together without any lectures and subsequently gained credit for the course.

Otto then went to University of Munich to be interviewed by the professor of chemistry there, Richard Willstätter. He was admitted to the university (1919–1920) to study chemistry, botany and physics. However, after three semesters he lost his enthusiasm for chemistry, preferring something more practical like agriculture.

He went to the Agricultural Institute of the University of Giessen and he studied there under Professor Paul Gisevius for two semesters in 1920/21. Otto disliked him and left. His aunt persuaded him to go back to university, with her support.

In the autumn of 1922 he joined at the Agricultural University of Berlin, having been given credit for his earlier studies in Vienna, Munich and Giessen, as well as for his practical work on his family's farm. He attended a lecture on plant genetics by Professor Erwin Baur. He was challenged by Baur's claim to be able to work with genes and the genetic combinations of plants exactly like the chemist with his molecules and his formulae. Otto asked Baur in 1923 if he could begin research under him before his diploma was completed.

His research problem was one of the earliest studies of genetic linkage in plants. Baur suggested that he clarify the linkage relations between one specific mutant (A, fuchsin red) and another nine mutants in Antirrhinum majus, the common snap dragon. In this Otto was unlucky because, after an extensive crossing and back-crossing programme, he found that all but one of the mutations segregated independently of A, and to a large extent of one another. However, the introduction to his thesis was a comprehensive review of linkage in plants that brought high praise from Baur and earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1925.