Abstract
José Antonio Campos-Ortega (1940-2004), a Spanish scientist who became a leading
figure in the developmental genetics of the nervous system, spent most of his scientific life in
Germany. Nevertheless, he remained deeply rooted in his native country. His thinking, his
ambition and his work were driven by scientific, philosophical and historical questions. He started
as a neuroanatomist, working first in Valencia, then in Göttingen, Tübingen and Freiburg. He used
primates, reptiles, then the house fly and finally Drosophila to address the question “How is the
brain or the eye structured in order to function?”. While in Freiburg, the problem shifted to “How
does the nervous system come into being, into form?” Campos-Ortega tried to understand early
neurogenesis in Drosophila through formal genetics, by identifying relevant genes and studying
their genetic interactions. Since he was convinced that not only a single experimental approach
could solve a problem as complex as the development of the nervous system, he also included the
molecular biological approach when he moved to Cologne, while maintaining a strong focus on
anatomy, embryology and genetics. There, he also started to work on the neurogenesis of the
zebrafish, using similar concepts and approaches. Throughout his scientific career, he thought,
wrote and taught about the evolution of methods and ideas in his field of research. At Campos-
Ortega’s early death, an unfinished book manuscript was left, entitled “Developmental Genetics.
The Path to the Biological Synthesis”. Some parts of his introductory overview are included here.
