1. Alexander Gurwitsch's continuing interest, with the help of his relative Leonid Mandelstam, in the advances in physics at that time aided in the formulation of his morphogenetic field theory, which Gurwitsch himself viewed throughout his life as no more than a suggestive hypothesis.
Alexander Gurwitsch's ideas had much in common with his contemporary Hans Driesch, and the two developed a mutual professional admiration.
Alexander Gurwitsch named the phenomenon mitogenetic radiation, since he believed that this light radiation allowed the morphogenetic field to control embryonic development.
Alexander Gurwitsch's published observations, which related that cell proliferation of an onion was accelerated by directing these rays down a tube, brought him great attention.
Alexander Gurwitsch's work influenced that of Paul Alfred Weiss in particular.
Alexander Gurwitsch was Professor of Histology and Embryology at Moscow University from 1924 to 1929 but fell afoul of the Communist Party and was forced to relinquish the chair.
Alexander Gurwitsch then directed a laboratory at the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Leningrad from 1930 until 1945, though he was forced to evacuate during World War 2.
Alexander Gurwitsch was director of the Institute of Experimental Biology in Leningrad from 1945 to 1948.
Alexander Gurwitsch sought to redefine his "heretical" concept of the morphogenetic field in general essays, pointing to molecular interactions unexplained by chemistry.
Alexander Gurwitsch retired in 1948 after Trofim Lysenko came to power but continued working at home.
Alexander Gurwitsch had been ahead of his time in his interest in the emergent properties of the embryo, but more modern self-organization theories and treatments of non-equilibrium thermodynamics in living systems would show the extent to which the vectors he described can be generated without the assumption of an overarching field, so the search for a physical field was abandoned in favour of more neutral concepts like the paradigm of Systems Biology.