Abstract
Frank Rattray Lillie was an embryologist and endocrinologist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His meticulous experimentation and carefully constructed scientific ideologies led him to become one of the first scientists to identify the mechanisms of sexual differentiation during development. The research he conducted throughout his career at the University of Chicago and the Marine Biological Laboratory covered an array of topics and questions, leaving a memorable and impactful legacy of scientific contributions. Lillie’s early career focused on marine embryology, where he provided extensive descriptions of the characteristics and mechanisms of embryonic development in numerous species. Most importantly, Lillie also was the first scientist to exhaustively characterize and provide mechanistic insight into bovine freemartinism. More than just a scientist, Lillie was also a successful leader, administrator, and educator. In his positions at the University of Chicago and the Marine Biological Laboratory, he advanced education and research initiatives in addition to promoting democratic scientific environments. His early contributions to the field of sexual differentiation and his development of sex hormone research initiatives permanently shaped the burgeoning field of neuroendocrinology.
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Bumgarner, J.R. (2022). Frank Lillie. In: Nelson, R.J., Weil, Z.M. (eds) Biographical History of Behavioral Neuroendocrinology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12970-4_2
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