Harvey, Ethel Browne (1885-1965)

US embryologist and cell biologist who discovered the mechanisms of cell division, using sea-urchin eggs as her experimental model. Ethel Browne Harvey was born in Baltimore and studied at Columbia University, New York. After her marriage she worked part-time, and visited several marine laboratories; from 1931 she was an independent research worker attached to the biology department of Princeton. She was a frequent visitor to the Stazione Zoologica in Naples. Harvey's work concentrated on the role in cell fertilization and development of non-nuclear cell components in the cytoplasm. She undertook morphological studies and physiological experiments to examine the factors that affect the process of cell division and was able to stimulate division in fragments of sea-urchin eggs that contained no nucleus. This was an important contribution to unravelling the connections between different cellular structures in controlling cell division and development.