On this day, 123 years ago, May 28, 1902 (April 21, 1902 in the lunar calendar), Tong Dizhou, a China embryologist and developmental biologist, was born. Tong Dizhou (1902-1979), a biologist. Born on May 28, 1902 in Yinxian County, Zhejiang (now Yinzhou District, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province). Due to his poor family, he entered the school at the age of 17. Graduated from the Department of Biology of Fudan University in 1927. In 1930, he received a doctorate in science from the University of Biking, Belgium. After returning to China, he served successively as a professor at Shandong University, Central University School of Medicine, Tongji University, and Fudan University, a researcher at the Institute of Psychophysiology of China, and a researcher at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Yale University in the United States. In 1948, he was elected as an academician of the Academia Sinica and in 1955, he was elected academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (member of the Faculty), and later served as a researcher at the Institute of Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of the Department of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has served successively as professor and vice president of Shandong University, member of the Standing Committee of the Third and Fourth National People's Congress, and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Founder of experimental embryology in China. The polarity or axial nature of ascidian mosaic development was proved by using the in vivo staining method, and the movement of cilia was used as the experimental object and polarity indicator to discuss the polarity of embryos, a major issue in embryonic development; in terms of amphioxus development, the interrelationship between schizospheres, the interrelationship between germ layers and the induction effect were studied, which gave the embryology community a new understanding of the individual development of amphioxus. It plays an enlightening role in understanding system development; In his later years, research was carried out on the relationship between nucleus and cytoplasm during development, which proved that in individual development, nucleus and cytoplasm are not independent of each other, but have a very close relationship. In March 1979, when he was giving a report to the Zhejiang Province Science Conference, unfortunately, his cerebral blood vessels ruptured and he fainted on the podium. From then on, he fell ill and died on March 30 at the age of 77. He has been teaching for many years and has trained a large number of students, many of whom have become well-known scholars at home and abroad.