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Updated: Aug 20, 2026

A Gut-on-a-Chip Model to Study the Gut Microbiome-Nervous System Axis
Published on: July 28, 2023
[A new view of Wolfgang Gutmann and the "Organism-Centred Theory"]
Abstract:
Six years after the death of the founder of the so-called 'Organism-Centred Theory' - Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Friedrich Gutmann died on 15 April 1997 - it is obvious that numerous aspects of this theoretical system, which were highly controversial while GUTMANN was still alive, are today gaining increasing acceptance. Two things are worth noting here: on the one hand it can be observed that statements from this concept, also known as the "Frankfurt Theory" (FT), are slowly establishing themselves in the scientific community as everyday scientific knowledge, that is, without being identified as intrinsic parts of the organism-centred theory. On the other hand it cannot be ignored that a rethinking process and an assumption of construction-morphological ideas has been observed, even among those bio-scientists who firmly regard themselves as representatives of the traditional view of evolution theory oriented towards Darwinian evolution paradigms. In terms of content, this transformation focuses on the evaluation of two central points of "organism-centred theory": on the one hand, GUTMANN's criticism of reductionism is finding an increasing number of followers, and futhermore, his idea that an organism itself actively generates and creates its own form has been convincingly confirmed by a number of more recent cellular findings.
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