Alessandro Minelli

Alessandro Minelli (born December 20, 1948) is an Italian biologist, formerly professor of Zoology in the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Padova mainly working on evo-devo subjects.
Biography.
Alessandro Minelli studied Natural Sciences at the University of Padova 1966–70 with a master's degree in 1970. From 1987–2011 Minelli was a Full Professor of Zoology at the University of Padova.
Scientific contributions.
Minelli is best known for his studies in evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo. His main contributions are about the conceptual foundations of this discipline. In his search for an intellectual framework common to evolutionary biology and developmental biology, he has strongly argued against the widespread adultocentrism, that is, interpreting development, in a more or less distinct teleological vein, as a process targeted to the production of an adult animal or plant. 
At variance with the most popular trend in evo-devo, which is based on comparative developmental genetics and has a clear focus on early stages of embryonic development, the approach defended by Minelli is strongly rooted in comparative morphology and aims to extend to postembryonic development. His approach moves from a revisitation of the traditional concepts of homology. According to Minelli, the homology relationships between two structures is necessarily limited to selected features of those structures, thus requiring the adoption a factorial, or combinatorial concept of homology.
Minelli has introduced new concepts, such as axis paramorphism (useful for understanding the evolutionary relationships between the main axis of the body and its appendages) and those of eosegment and merosegment, through which he suggests a radical revisitation of the architecture of the body of segmented animals. Minelli has also explored the implication of evo-devo for biological systematics, speciation and the evolution of life cycles.