death_date death_place birth_place |work_institutions nationality birth_date known_for image article_title author_abbrev_bot name alma_mater
23 june 1881 frankfurt am main , german empire hamburg , holy roman empire university of jena , university of dorpat german 05 april 1804 cell theory psm v22 d156 matthias jacob schleiden.jpg matthias jakob schleiden
 schleid . matthias jakob schleiden heidelberg
matthias jakob schleiden

matthias jakob schleiden -lrb- 5 april 1804 23 june 1881 -rrb- was a german botanist and co-founder of the cell theory , along with theodor schwann and rudolf virchow .
born in hamburg , schleiden was educated at heidelberg , then practiced law in hamburg , but soon developed his love for the botany into a full-time pursuit .
schleiden preferred to study plant structure under the microscope .
while a professor of botany at the university of jena , he wrote `` contributions to phytogenesis '' -lrb- 1838 -rrb- , in which he stated that the different parts of the plant organism are composed of cells .
thus , schleiden and schwann became the first to formulate what was then an informal belief as a principle of biology equal in importance to the atomic theory of chemistry .
he also recognized the importance of the cell nucleus , discovered in 1831 by the scottish botanist robert brown , and sensed its connection with cell division .
schleiden was one of the first german biologists to accept charles darwin 's theory of evolution .
he became professor of botany at the university of dorpat in 1863 .
he concluded that all plant parts are made of cells and that an embryonic plant organism arises from the one cell .
he died in frankfurt am main on 23 june 1881 .
