Alexander S. Kekulé

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Alexander Kekulé (2020)

Alexander S. Kekulé ( ˌalɛˈksandɐ ɜs ˈkekuleː ; born November 7, 1958 as Alexander Urchs in Munich ) is a German doctor , biochemist and publicist . Since 1999 he has held the chair for medical microbiology and virology at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology at the University Hospital Halle (Saale) .

Life

Alexander Kekulé is the son of the author Dagmar Kekulé . He initially received the surname of his stepfather, the director Wolfgang Urchs . He attended the Waldorf School and the Rupprecht Gymnasium in Munich, where he graduated from high school in 1979 . He studied philosophy , biochemistry and human medicine at the Free University of Berlin and at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich until 1987. In 1988 he worked as a summer associate for the management consultancy McKinsey & Company in New York City (USA). From 1988 to 1993 he conducted research with Peter Hans Hofschneider at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried (Bavaria). He received his doctorate in biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin in 1990 and in medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 1992 . In 1993 he completed his habilitation in medical microbiology / virology at the Technical University of Munich . From 1993 to 1994 he worked as an assistant in internal medicine in the hospital of the Barmherzigen Brüder in Munich . From 1994 to 1996 he worked at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. Kekulé is a specialist in microbiology, virology and infection epidemiology as well as a specialist in laboratory medicine . From 1997 to 1998 he was deputy head of the Institute for Virology at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen . In 1999 he followed a call to the chair for medical microbiology and virology at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

Kekulé is married, has five children and lives in Halle and Munich.

As a child, Kekulé had the lead role in the film Bübchen by Roland Klick in 1968 under the actor name Sascha Urchs .

Research areas

Kekulé's research interests are infectious diseases , biological civil protection and bioethics . In search of the molecular causes of liver cancer , he and his research group were able to show in 1992 that the X gene of the hepatitis B virus activates a signal cascade in the liver cell, which is also responsible for the development of cancer through certain chemicals. He and his group also discovered the preS / S transactivator, a novel regulatory gene for the hepatitis B virus. Another focus of his work is influenza - pandemic planning .

Kekulé is the majority shareholder and managing director of the Institute for Biological Safety Research GmbH in Halle, which was founded in 2006 to “research, develop and market biological and medical innovations with a focus on biological safety”. Most recently, as a representative of this institute, he published an analysis of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2015 and recommended measures for better handling of future infectious disease outbreaks.

His most recent scientific publication, which he co-authored in 2017, reports on the results of a multicenter study on the epidemiology of invasive aspergillosis in patients with acute leukemia.

honors and awards

For his work in the field of cancer production by viruses, Kekulé received the Hans Popper Award for Basic Research from the International Association for the Study of the Liver (1992) and the Karl Heinrich Bauer Memorial Prize for Cancer Research (1990). He was also awarded the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (1991), the Chemical Industry Association (1991) and the SmithKline Beecham Foundation's journalism award (1997). He was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation as well as the Bavarian state winner in the Jugend forscht competition, then still under the name of Alexander Urchs. Kekulé was a member of the protection commission at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and has been an extraordinary member of the drug commission of the German medical profession and the selection commission of the German National Academic Foundation since 2010 . From 1990 to 2004 he was a member of the teaching and continuing education commission of the Society for Virology .

Journalistic activity

In addition to his scientific work, Kekulé publishes on social and ethical aspects of the natural sciences. His contributions have appeared in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , the magazine Der Spiegel , the daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the weekly newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine . Since 1999 he has been writing the column “What knowledge creates” in the daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel .

In 2001, Kekulé advocated the establishment of a global fund to fight AIDS in the Third World and advocated a “human right to natural heritage”.

The Scopus database calculates (as of June 2020) an h-index of 14 from 33 scientific publications with a total of 1186 recorded citations .

Statements on the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic

As part of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Kekulé has been publicly speaking since the beginning of reporting on this disease with information and positions, for example on risks, protective and restriction measures and their withdrawal. The MDR has been producing the Kekulés Corona Compass podcast since March 16, 2020 . In a conversation with the moderator Camillo Schumann, Kekulé discusses the scientific background, gives assessments of political measures and answers questions put by listeners by phone or e-mail.

Fonts

Web links

Commons : Alexander Kekule  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "In 1980 Alexander S. Kekulé, then still under the name Urchs, won 3rd prize in chemistry at the Jugend forscht Finale." Alexander S. Kekulé , jugend-forscht.de, April 2010
  2. ↑ "Alexander Kekulé, b. Urchs (21), Munich, Former Rupprecht-Gymnasium, Munich, 3rd Prize Chemistry “ The properties of the tea drink in connection with the chemistry of tea tannins and tea caffeine, 1980 | Chemistry | Bavaria , jugend-forscht.de
  3. ^ Martin Spiewak , Jan Schweitzer: The contradiction spirit . In: THE TIME . No. 31/2020 . Hamburg July 23, 2020, p. 35 .
  4. ↑ Short biography of the Drug Commission, accessed on January 23, 2019
  5. ↑ About The Author . In: personal blog, accessed July 3, 2020.
  6. ↑ Nature: Hepatitis B virus transactivator HBx uses a tumor promoter signaling pathway. (PDF) Nature.com, accessed September 18, 2010 .
  7. ↑ Nature: The preS2 / S region of integrated hepatitis B virus DNA encodes a transcriptional transactivator. (PDF) Nature.com, accessed September 18, 2010 .
  8. ^ Public announcement RegisSTAR. Retrieved June 5, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Declaration of Conflicts of Interest. In: akdae.de. Medicines Commission of the German Medical Association, accessed on June 5, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Alexander S. Kekulé: Learning from Ebola Virus: How to Prevent Future Epidemics . In: Viruses . tape 7 , no. 7 , July 9, 2015, p. 3789-3797 , doi : 10.3390 / v7072797 ( mdpi.com [accessed June 5, 2020]).
  11. ^ Philipp Koehler et al .: Epidemiology of invasive aspergillosis and azole resistance in patients with acute leukaemia: the SEPIA Study . In: International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents . tape 49 , no. 2 , February 1, 2017, ISSN  0924-8579 , p. 218–223 , doi : 10.1016 / j.ijantimicag.2016.10.019 ( sciencedirect.com [accessed June 5, 2020]).
  12. ↑ Alexander S. Kekulé. on: jugend-forscht.de , April 2010.
  13. ^ Associate members. April 19, 2010, accessed June 5, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Alexander S. Kekulé: A unique opportunity. In: time online. May 17, 2001 (= Die Zeit. 21/2001).
  15. ↑ Alexander S. Kekulé: Human right to genetic material . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 2001, p. 206-207 ( online ).
  16. ↑ Kekulè, Alexander S. In: Scopus . Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  17. ↑ Alexander S. Kekulé on the coronavirus on: tagesschau.de , February 2020.
  18. ↑ Coronavirus: "The danger has been played down". Retrieved April 16, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Virologist Kekulé: "You could have done more against the virus", January 28, 2020
  20. ↑ u. a .: Virologist Kekulé: Only nationwide school closings could still curb the spread of the coronavirus , deutschlandfunk.de, March 5, 2020
  21. ↑ New podcast: “Kekulé's Corona Compass”. In: mdr.de. Retrieved April 4, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Kekulé, Alexander S.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kekulé, Alexander; Urchs, Sascha (actor's name); Urchs, Alexander (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich