Professor emeritus Malcolm Steinberg passes away at 81

Steinberg is known for a hypothesis he introduced that describes how cells in an embryo assemble, which he called his differential adhesion hypothesis. According to his hypothesis, certain cells during embryo development behave like liquids, exhibiting adhesion to other embroyo cells that ultimately defines the shape of the embryo at various stages of development. Steinberg wrote more than 150 scientific papers, some of which were published in the prestigious journal Science, in Developmental Biology and in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He continued to publish even after leaving the University seven years ago.

Prior to the University, Steinberg taught at Johns Hopkins University for eight years.