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Robert Hooke
Robert C. Hooke was a British scientist who was assigned to work with microscopes from the king. In the 1600's Hooke made an important discovery. While examining a cork through a 50x microscope he discovered that there were tiny cracks and individual tiny spots on the cork. He later named those spots "Cells" or "Pores." This discovery led future scientist to investigate. -
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was a scientist who was one of the few to find a major discovery to form the cell theory. The major discovery he made was when he found single celled organisms while looking into pond water from a water scope (In 1674). What he found are called protists (eukaryotic organisms that are unicellular), however he called them "animalcules." He didn't disprove of Hooke's find, however he demolished the idea of spontaneous combustion -
Robert Brown
While observing pollen Robert Brown found that the particles of the pollen were moving in jittery movements. He did not develop a theory for why the particles moved but the phenomenon was called the "Brownian Motion." Although Leeuwenhoek saw the nucleus of a plant cell he did not name it. Instead, Brown named that part of the cell the "nucleus." -
Theodor Schwann
Theodor Schwann was an important scientist who helped develop the cell theory. He did this by creating a rule that all living things are made up of cells. He expanded on Scheilden's idea that cells are the fundamental part of life. He also discovered the Schwann cells (enzyme pepsin and glial cells). He proved that the theory of spontaneous generation was incorrect whilst conducting an experiment. Another thing he stated was that all animal tissues have a similar cell structure to a plant. -
Matthias Schleiden
Matthias Schleiden was one of the leading scientist who developed the cell theory. Schleiden was the first scientist to figure out that cells were important units of life. In another one of his experiments he tried to develop a theory for cell division but it was later proven wrong. He found out the other parts of a plant cell using better microscopes and figured out that plant cells don't just have a nucleus. Schwann later expanded on this idea with animal cells. -
Richard Virchow
Richard Virchow was a German scientist who developed a key piece of the cell theory. He developed the cellular pathology that said that diseases don't kill an entire organism, but focus on a group of cells (such as bone marrow). Using previous scientist's models he determined that the way cells are formed is by cell division ,although, it was different from Schlieden's idea which said that cells came from the nucleus of old cells. Alongside other scientists Richard Virchow did the final push.
