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348 BCE
Aristotle
Aristotle established methods for investigation and reasoning and provided a theory on how embryos generate and develop. He originated the theory that an organism develops gradually from undifferentiated material. -
Zacharias Jansen
Zacharias Jansen invented the compound optical microscope which improved the way they saw things under a microscope which helped with the cell theory. -
Jan Baptist van Helmont
Helmont contributed to cell theory by making an important early contribution to photosynthesis. -
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
He was a Dutch tradesman who was known to be the father of microbiology, and was one of the first microbiologists. He upgraded the microscope, and had observed what he said looked like little animals under the microscope. -
Robert Hooke
Hooke used the microscope to observe cells, and confirmed Leeuwenhoek’s observation of what looked like little animals under the microscope, or cells. -
Lorenz Oken
Lorenz Oken stated that all living organisms originate from and consist of cells, which was one of the first statements of cell theory. -
Robert Brown
Robert Brown discovered the nucleus and it’s role, which helped to put together the cell theory. This discovery helped to confirm the second part of the cell theory, which is that the cell is the basic unit of structure and organization in organisms. -
Matthias Schleiden
Matthias was a German botanist, and was the first to recongnise that all plants, and parts of plants, are composed of cells. Schleiden believed in spontaneous generation. -
Theodor Schwann
A zoologist who Schleiden mentioned plants and parts of plants having cells to. Schwann had come to similar conclusions when studying animal tissues. He then published a book that included the first statement o the cell theory, all living things are composed of cells. -
Albrecht von Roelliker
Albrecht von Roelliker discovered that sperm and eggs are also made of cells and that humans are formed of cells from beginning to end. -
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf was a German medical officer, and he discovered the theory of cellular reproduction. “All cells from cells.” -
Louis Pasteur
A famous scientist who set out to disprove spontaneous generation with the experiment of pasteurization that firmly established cell theory and solidified the basic steps of the scientific method.