Carlo Jucci

His studies concerning the migration of leaf pigments and differential permeability of the intestine, and silkworm salivary gland function on carotenoids and flavones were the first example of biochemical genetics in the animal world.

[citation needed] Following a course in classical studies Jucci graduated in natural sciences from the University of Rome on 10 July 1920, defending his thesis on the biology of termites.

In 1934 he succeeded to the chair of zoology at the University of Pavia, following the death of Cesare Artom, whose studies of the chromosomal and cellular aspects of heredity Jucci wished to build upon.

The center was launched alongside a new scientific journal of genetics, Scientia genetica, a periodical with international circulation and wide participation of researchers from Latin countries.

Grassi argued that the colony could stop and divert the development of a number of individuals, destined to become perfect insects, inducing them to assume the form and functions of workers, soldiers or royalty, varying proportions and qualities of food; others, like the Americans Snyder and Thompson had believed to demolish the results of the scientist supporting an intrinsic differentiation during the ontogenetic development of all individuals.

He noted that, when the royals are absent in society, a change in diet causes the development of some nymphs to stop and induces the differentiation of the mature genital organs, giving rise to the replacement or neotenic reals.

With the study of excretory functions in real and neotenic, related to histology, and the detection of anabolic and catabolic products in different organisms, Jucci introduced an original method of comparative physiological research.

Additionally, among other things, he hypothesized that the examination of the structure of the tentorial glands showed an evolution occurred in the phylogenetic path of the group and considered that, although the systematic position of the Termites (derived from cockroaches, about 150 million years ago, in the Mesozoic, they evolved convergently with ants in appearance and social behavior) and very distant hymenopterans, It would be reasonable to rely on it to help explain the phenomena of convergence of social insects.

Discovered the existence of the tentorial glands in the species Reticulitermes lucifugus, and made a biometric study of them, he theorized that the mediation of hormonal factors induced by a special diet could have taken to the differentiation of the castes.

Then, Jucci in the agricultural school of Portici turned his interests to the biology of the silkworm, one of the topics most dealt with in the field of breeding, already studied by Italian scientists as Marcello Malpighi and Agostino Bassi but also by scholars active in China and Japan.

With his later studies in Naples, he highlighted the high degree of natural immunity present in the moth of the hives against acid-resistant bacteria, because of digestive enzymes of the wax and the presence in the intestine of caterpillars.