Kinetochore structure and chromosome orientation: a tribute to Gunnar Östergren

Gunnar Östergren (1918–1998), a cytologist-geneticist of rank (Fig. 1), was active at the Inst. of Genetics, Univ. of Lund (Sweden) during the years 1940–1964, intermitted by a stay in Stockholm (Nobel Institute, 1947–1951), and followed by being a professor of genetics, and later professor emeritus, at the Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala (1964–1998). Gunnar Östergren (G.Ö.) had connections with HEREDITAS in two ways. Firstly, during the years at the Inst. of Genetics in Lund, where the editorial office of HEREDITAS was located, he assisted in the editorial work of this periodical by handling the pictorial material of accepted articles. This task was handed over to me when he left for Uppsala, after giving me useful guidelines that I made use of during my years at this post. Secondly, HEREDITAS was the forum where he published the majority of his work. His most cited publication is his PhD thesis on chromosome orientation during cell division (Östergren 1951), briefly highlighted here. This work laid the grounds for, and was ratified by, recent findings.

In addition to these connections to HEREDITAS that motivated me to write about G.Ö. is the fact that he has been my supervisor and mentor during the time I worked for my PhD degree (1958–1963). My respect and admiration of G.Ö. is great.