Hertha Meyer

Hertha Meyer (3 May 1902 – 30 August 1990) was a Brazilian biologist and director of the Carlos Chagas Filho Biophysics Institute under the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Born in Germany, she was educated in infectious diseases at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. Following the increasing Jewish persecution under the Nazi regime, she moved to Italy to work under Giuseppe Levi at the University of Turin. As antisemitism rose in Italy, she emigrated to Brazil where she joined the faculty of Oswaldo Cruz Institute. She transferred to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro to head the Carlos Chagas Filho Biophysics Institute, where a separate laboratory called Laboratório de Ultraestrutura Celular Hertha Meyer (Hertha Meyer Laboratory of Cellular Ultrastructure) was established in her name.

Meyer pioneered the methods of cell culture, specifically useful for protozoan parasites such as Toxoplasma, Plasmodium and Trypanosoma. She developed a method for electron microscopy that was used in the identification and discoveries of cell organelles. Her cell culture method led to the discovery of nerve growth factor, a protein that regulates development and survival of neurones.