Henry Van Peters Wilson (1863–1939) was a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

, Department of Biology. In 1907 he demonstrated that silicate

sponge Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and a ...

s have the ability to re-form into functional creatures after the individual cells have been dissociated from one another by mechanical means (sieving through a fine silk mesh).Migration and Rearrangement of Cells Within Sponges,

"

References

1863 births 1939 deaths American biologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty {{biologist-stub