Agnes Ullmann

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Agnes Ullmann (born April 14, 1927 in Satu Mare , Romania ; † February 25, 2019 in Paris ) was a Hungarian-French microbiologist .

Life

Ullmann was born in Transylvania, Romania, as a member of the Hungarian minority in a multiethnic and multilingual environment, and grew up speaking three languages ​​(Hungarian, Romanian and German) as a child. In 1945 she graduated from school in Arad . She then began studying natural sciences at the University of Cluj (Klausenburg). Since she found the level of study unsatisfactorily low, she switched to the University of Budapest , where she obtained a diploma in chemistry in 1949. She then worked on her doctoral thesis at the Institute for Medicinal Chemistry headed by Brúnó Straub and received her doctorate in natural sciences in 1958. At that time, only the teachings of Trofim Lyssenko were allowed to be taught at the Hungarian universities , while scientific genetics “Western style” was frowned upon. In 1948, while studying, Ullmann read an article by Jacques Monod in which the latter rejected Lyssenko's teachings as unscientific. In 1956 Ullmann and her husband Tamás Erdős joined the opposition Petőfi circle and she took part as coordinator of the Revolutionary Committee of Intellectuals in the Hungarian People's Uprising of 1956. Ullmann was largely unaffected by the repression after the uprising was put down, but her husband had to go to jail for a few months.

After a research stay in 1958/59 at the Pasteur Institute with Jacques Monod , she went to France in 1960 (with the support of Monod, who smuggled her and her husband in a camper van from Hungary). She went to Monod's laboratory at the Pasteur Institute on a Rockefeller Foundation grant , where she stayed for the remainder of her career, becoming a professor, laboratory director and, in 1982, a member of the board of directors.

At the Pasteur Institute, Ullmann initially examined the mode of action of antibiotics. She was able to explain how streptomycin works (as an inhibitor of protein synthesis in bacteria). She dealt intensively with the effect of the second messenger cAMP in the bacterial cell. In 1967 she showed with Monod that cAMP abolishes catabolite repression in the bacterium E. coli . Then she found another factor with Monod and others that intensifies catabolite repression (CMF, catabolite modulator factor).

Later she dealt with how the whooping cough pathogen and its toxin work. She showed that the toxin increases cAMP production in the host cell and thus disrupts its metabolism. The ability of the toxin to allow other molecules to gain access to the attacked host cell was used to develop vaccines by coupling the genetically engineered whooping cough toxin with antigen fragments that were to be immunized against.

In 2002 she received the Robert Koch Medal . She was an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences .

In 1978 she edited a collection of essays by Jacques Monod with André Lwoff . She also published two anthologies in his memory.

From 1966 she was a French citizen.

Fonts

  • Published in: Origins of Molecular Biology - A tribute to Jacques Monod , American Society for Microbiology , Washington DC, 2003 (French original 1980)
  • Editor with Ernesto Quagliarello, Giorgio Bernardi: From enzyme adaptation to natural philosophy - heritage from Jacques Monod , Elsevier 1987 (Conference in Trani 1986)
  • Editor with Antoine Danchin, Francis Gasser (Institut Pasteur): Régulation de l'expression génétique - rôle de l'AMP cyclique , Paris, Hermann 1986
  • with François Jacob, Jacques Monod: Characterization by in vitro complementation of a peptide corresponding to an operator-proximal segment of the β-galactosidase structural gene of Escherichia coli , Journal of Molecular Biology, Volume 24, 1967, pp. 339-343
  • A fortunate journey on uneven grounds , Annual Review of Microbiology, Volume 66, 2012, pp. 1-24

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
  2. ↑ According to Ärzteblatt, 2002 , she was 74 years old in 2002
  3. ↑ a b c d Ullmann Ágnes . In: Hungarian Academy of Sciences (ed.): HÍRLEVÉL . tape 5 , no. 8 , 15 August 2015 (Hungarian, English, pdf - news letter from the Presidential Committee “Hungarian Science Abroad”).
  4. ^ Hungarian Academy of Sciences Ullmann Agnes
  5. ^ Website from Sean B. Carroll for his book on Monod Brave Genius , with photo by Ullmann
  6. ↑ Ullmann Multiple effects of cAMP: from gene regulation to bacterial virulence , Robert Koch Foundation lecture on the occasion of the Robert Koch Medal 2002 ( Memento of October 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Monod, Ullmann, Cyclic AMP as an antagonist of catabolic repression in Escherichia coli, FEBS Letters, Volume 2, 1968, pp. 57-60
  8. ↑ A. Ullmann, F. Tillier, J. Monod: Catabolite Modulator Factor: A Possible Mediator of Catabolite Repression in Bacteria, Proc. Nat. Acad. USA, Vol. 73, 1976, pp. 3476-3479, online
  9. ↑ A. Dessein, F. Tillier, A. Ullmann: Catabolite modulator factor: physiological properties and in vivo effects, Mol. Gen. Genet., Vol. 162, 1978, pp. 89-94, PMID 209310
personal data
SURNAME Ullmann, Agnes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian-French microbiologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Satu Mare , Romania
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 2019