Stefan Kopeć (Polish pronunciation:[stɛfankɔpɛt͡ɕ]; January 22, 1888 – March 11, 1941[1]) was a Polish biologist and pioneer of insect
endocrinology. Kopeć was director at
Puławy Agricultural Research Station.[2] He was murdered by the Germans during World War II.
Biography
Stefan Kopeć studied at the
Jagiellonian University in
Kraków. He received his PhD there in 1912, and worked at
Puławy Agricultural Research Station in Poland between 1915 and 1920. In 1929, he was made director of the institute.[2] Between 1908 and 1927, Kopeć published at least 17 papers, in Polish, English and German, on insect endocrinology in various professional journals.[2] Kopeć began his studies of the
moulting of insects with Lymantria dispar[3] from specimens caught in the wild.[4] His subsequent scientific activities helped determine the role of the
insect brain in hormone production. He was the earliest researcher to understand the importance of the insect brain, as is demonstrated by his statement in a 1917 paper: "For the normal process of metamorphosis the presence of the brain, at least up to a certain moment, is indispensable..."[2]
Kopeć's most significant contribution was his study of
neurosecretory cells in the brains of insects which secrete a crucial
growth hormone,
prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH), which regulates the process of metamorphosis (ecdysteroidogenesis).[5][6] He observed that nervous tissue could behave like an
endocrine gland. This discovery stimulated further scientific research leading to the establishment of the field of science known as
neuroendocrinology.[7][8]
Kopeć's work was cut short due to his arrest by the
Gestapo in 1940 together with his daughter Maria and son Stanisław in an operation against a
Polish Underground State-run secret university. He was imprisoned at the
Pawiak prison in
Warsaw and executed by the Germans in 1941 at
Palmiry,[1] near Warsaw, together with his son, as a reprisal for an action of the Polish resistance, as a part of the
German AB-Aktion in Poland. The
University of Wrocław named its annual International Conference on Arthropods the Stefan Kopeć Memorial Conference in Kopeć's honor.[9]
Bibliography
Kopeć, Stefan (1922). "Mutual relationship in the development of the brain and eyes of lepidoptera". Journal of Experimental Zoology. 36 (4): 458–467.
Bibcode:
1922JEZ....36..458K.
doi:
10.1002/jez.1400360405.
Kopeć, Stefan (1924). "On the Heterogeneous Influence of Starvation of Male and of Female Insects on Their Offspring". Biological Bulletin. 46 (1): 22–34.
doi:
10.2307/1536517.
JSTOR1536517.
Kopeć, Stefan (1923). "The influence of the nervous system on the development and regeneration of muscles and integument in insects". Journal of Experimental Zoology. 37 (1): 14–25.
Bibcode:
1923JEZ....37...14K.
doi:
10.1002/jez.1400370103.
Kopeć, Stefan (1922). "Studies on the Necessity of the Brain for the Inception of Insect Metamorphosis". Biological Bulletin. 42 (6): 323–342.
doi:
10.2307/1536759.
JSTOR1536759.
Kopeć, Stefan (1923). "On the offspring of rabbit-does mated with two sires simultaneously". Journal of Genetics. 13 (3): 371–382.
doi:
10.1007/BF02983070.
S2CID20739576.
Kopeć, Stefan; Greenwood, Alan W (1930). "The effect of yolk injections on the plumage of an ovariotomised brown leghron hen". Wilhelm Roux' Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen. 121 (1–2): 87–95.
doi:
10.1007/BF00644945.
PMID28353827.
S2CID6897019.
^Albert Rosenfeld
[1], LIFE, 6 Oct 1958 (magazine) [Retrieved 2011-12-18].
^Fahrbach, Susan E; Mesce, Karen A (2005). "'Neuroethoendocrinology': Integration of field and laboratory studies in insect neuroendocrinology". Hormones and Behavior. 48 (4): 352–359.
doi:
10.1016/j.yhbeh.2005.04.010.
PMID15950975.
S2CID29763890.