Anton Horn

Anton Horn

Anton Horn (center) and Klaus Thielmann (right) at the 1985 National Prize of the GDR

Anton Horn (born April 1, 1940 in Cvikov ; † January 10, 2004 in Jena ) was a German physician and professor of biochemistry at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena .

Life

Anton Horn was born in Bohemia. He comes from a rural background - butchers and innkeepers for generations. In the course of resettlement from what was then the Sudeten region , he came to Laucha an der Unstrut with his mother, the father still in captivity .

He passed his Abitur in Schulpforte and studied medicine in Jena. After the state examination, he began working at the Institute for Biochemistry in Jena, where he completed his doctorate and later his habilitation (1976) while still studying (1958–1964) . After the specialist examination, he became senior physician at the institute and headed an independent department here. In 1986 he became an associate professor and in 1993 he received a C3 professorship for "Biochemical Analysis". He was married to Barbara Horn, b. Keck, who later became head of the Jena Institute for Transfusion Medicine, with whom he had three children (Anne, Christoph and Dorothea).

Act

Anton Horn's main areas of work were protein chemical and enzymological analysis throughout his life . From the very beginning, however, he was interested not only in pure biochemical basic research, but also in cross-sectional areas with physical, mathematical and clinical-chemical references and, in particular, the practical application of research results. This necessarily included the development of missing equipment and other research tools. This is evident in his more than 150 publications, more than 180 lectures and a total of 57 patent applications. In 1973 he and Klaus Thielmann were honored with the Virchow Prize for his early work on the development of the chamber paper analysis system. Under his direction and in close cooperation with Cuban colleagues (CENIC), numerous immune tests were developed and used for health checks both in the former GDR and in Cuba. In close cooperation with the central workshop of the University Hospital in Jena and the former VEB Carl Zeiss Jena , he succeeded in developing a comprehensive analytical ultramicroliter system (UML, SUMAL) that was far ahead of its time. This included repeating pipettes, a wide variety of parallelized sample carriers, 50 to 96-fold liquid handlers, special photometers, temperature control modules and 96-fold precision cuvettes. This system created the basis for the development of numerous miniaturized enzyme, immune and screening tests in the institute and many other institutions in the GDR. Prototypes from it can be seen today in the historical device collection of Analytik-Jena AG. With this system, for whose development he and Klaus Thielmann received the GDR National Prize in 1985 , it was possible to develop and carry out miniaturized, and therefore very inexpensive, serological tests and immune tests for the early detection and therapy control of a number of tumor diseases. Even before the introduction of ultrasound examinations, prenatal neural tube defects could be diagnosed with a high degree of certainty. In addition, several essential tests (galactosemia, biotinidase deficiency) for newborn screening were developed under his leadership and even diagnostics for completely different areas of application, such as phytopathology and tools for agriculture, were developed. The device developments he was driving forward were later taken up in own developments both in Cuba (SUMA, Sistema Ultra Micro Analítico) and in Jena by the company CyBio-AG (e.g. CyBi-wellTM) and very successfully carried on to market maturity.

Anton Horn has always followed the introduction of new technologies in biochemistry very carefully. He was one of the first to use MALDI mass spectrometry . He successfully used this technique to elucidate the structure of proteins and enzymes. In the last years of his work he devoted himself to proteome analysis, where his predictive and analytical skills led him to original solutions. This work was continued by his working group after his death. After the political change, he was granted numerous DFG and BMBF-funded projects. Anton Horn played a key role in maintaining the central research workshops of the Jena University Hospital in their current form as the indispensable birthplace of prototypes for the research groups at this facility.

In addition to his great commitment to research, Anton Horn was also a committed university professor who experimented extensively and originally with didactic means. As a result, many generations of medical students were introduced to experimental work in a “research internship”. In addition, he has supervised a large number of diploma students, a very large number of doctoral students and several post-doctoral degrees.

Fonts

• Investigations into the kinetics of glucose-6-phosphatase in the normal and carbon-tetrachloride-damaged liver. A. Horn, dissertation at the Medical Faculty of the FSU Jena (1964)
• Rapid large scale enzymatic analysis in the ultramicro range. A. Horn, K. Thielmann, Acta biol. med. germ. 27, 657-661 (1971)
• Quantitative fluorimetric determination of enzyme activity with the new microanalytical system KAPA. B. Horn, A. Horn, K. Thielmann, I. Wahrenberg, Acta biol. med. germ. 29 447 (1972)
• Determination of threshold values ​​for blood ethanol by a two-enzyme system - A new principle for the microanalytical system KAPA. K. Thielmann, A. Horn, G. Hanel, D. Klemmt, G. Cumme, H. Gildemeister, Acta biol. med. germ. 19, 453 (1972)
• Application of the Metal Complex Concept to Enzyme Reactions: GA Cumme, A. Horn, R. Bublitz, W. Achilles, Acta biol. med. germ. 311, 771-780 (1973)
• Principle and application of a multicuvette for determination of enzyme activities and substrate concentrations in the micro-range. E. Hoffmann-Blume, A. Horn and K. Thielmann, Acta biol. med. germ. 36, 1-6 (1977)
• Purification and characterization of commercial NADH and accompanying dehydrogenase inhibitors. I. Wenz, W. Lösche, U. Till. H. Petermann and A. Horn, Methods in Enzymology 66, 11-23 (1980)
• Chamber analytical technique - its application to enzymatic and immunological assays in the ultra micro range. E. Hoffmann-Blume and A. Horn, Journal of Automatic Chemistry . 4, 92 (1982)
• Dynamic properties of a phosphofructokinase-pyruvate kinase system. In vitro experiments using the substrate-state-technique. GA Cumme, R. Bublitz and A. Horn, European Journal of Biochemistry . 115: 59-65 (1981)
• Ultramicro-ELISA for Alpha1-Fetoprotein with the Chamber Analytical Technique. A. Horn, JL Fernandez Yero, M. Schulze, J. Clin. Chem. Clin. Biochem. 19, 702 (1981)
• Purification of alkaline phosphatase from calf intestine (AP) with immunosorbent affinity chromatography. A. Horn, R. Bublitz, IL Fernandez, Yero, M. Schulze, H. Ehle, Progress in Clinical Enzymology, Vol. 2, 255-259 (1983)
• Method and device for carrying out ultramicroenzyme immune tests. JL Fernandez Yero, J. Lopez Ruiz, A. Horn, M. Schulze, H. Ehle, J. Volke, WP C 12 Q 247 394 (1983)
• Ultramicro-ELISA using a fluorogenic substrate for detection of potato viruses. D. Reichenbächer, I. Kalinina, M. Schulze, A. Horn, H. Kleinhempel, Potato Research 27, 353 - 364 (1984)
• Determination of lipid antibodies in serum with an ultramicroenzyme immunassay in children with urinary tract infections. J. Misselwitz, A. Horn, W. Erler, Dtsch. Health 39, 1627-1669 (1984)
• Intralumenal alkaline phosphatase of the calf intestine. H. Ehle, R. Bublitz, A. Horn, Biomed. Biochim. Acta 44, 2, 223-233 (1985)
• Testing and expansion of the application areas of the ultra-microliter system (UML), A. Horn, E. Hoffmann-Blume, K. Schilling, B. Horn, H. Ehle, G. Cumme, K. Thielmann, J. Fernandez Yero, B. Neef, J. Volke, Z. Klin. Med. 41, 557-560 (1986)
• Maternal serum alpha1-fetoprotein screening for neural tube defects and other disorders using an ultramicro-ELISA. H. Koerner, L. Rodrigez, J. Fernandez Yero, M. Schulze, A. Horn, L. Heredero, S. Tinschert, J. Olivia, D. Sommer, R. Solis, C. Zwahr, P. Prenzlau, G Cobet, H. Günther, Hum. Genet 73, 60-63 (1986)
• Multi-channel dosing device. A. Horn, R. Müller-Hipper, H. Wölfel, W. Hoyme, WP G 01 F / 302 392 4 (1987)
• Evidence for Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) Anchoring of Intraluminal Alkaline Phosphatase of the Calf Intestine (AP). E. Hoffmann-Blume, MB Garcia Marenco, H. Ehle, R. Bublitz, M. Schulze and A. Horn, Eur. J. Biochem. 199, 305-312, (1991)
• Multiwavelength photometry of thermochromic indicator solutions for temperature determination in multicuvetts. K. Schilling, GA Cumme, E. Hoffmann-Blume, H. Hoppe, A. Horn, Clin. Chem. 39, 251-256, 1993
• Chartacerization of the interaction of alkaline phosphatase with an activity inhibiting monoclonal antibody by progress curve analysis. GA Cumme, U. Walter, R. Bublitz, H. Hoppe, H. Rhode, and A. Horn, J. Immunol. Meth. 182 (1995) 29-39
• Is the brush border membrane of the intestinal mucosa a generator of "chymosomes"? K.-J. Halbhuber, M. Schulze, H. Rhode, R. Bublitz, H. Feuerstein, M. Walter, W. Linss, HW Meyer, and A. Horn, Cell. Mol. Biol. 40 (8), 1077-1096, 1994
• Glycosylphosphatidylinositol-alkaline phosphatase from calf intestine as substrate for glycosylphosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipases-Microassay using hydrophobic chromatography in pipet tips. H. Rhode, E. Hoffmann-Blume, K. Schilling, S. Gehrhardt, A. Göhlert, A. Büttner, R. Bublitz, GA Cumme, A. Horn, Anal. Biochem. 231 (1995) 99-108
• Newborn screening for galactosemia: ultramicro assay for galactose-1-phosphate-uridyltransferase activity. H. Rhode, E. Elei, I. Taube, T. Podskarbi, A. Horn, Clin. Chim. Acta 274 (1998) 71-87
• Biotinidase determination in serum and dried blood spots - High sensitivity fluorimetrical ultramicro-assay. Broda, E., Baumgartner, ER, Scholl, S., Stopsack, M., Horn, A., Rhode, H., Clinica Chimica Acta 314 (2001) 175-185
• Multidimensional proteomics of human serum using parallel chromatography of native constitutents and microplate technology. A. Horn, S. Kreusch, R. Bublitz, H. Hoppe, GA Cumme, M. Schulze, T. Moore, G. Ditze, H. Rhode, Proteomics 2006, 6, 559-570

literature

• Heidrun Rhode: Prof. Dr. med. habil. Anton Horn (1.4.1940 - 10.1.2004) - Obituary for the 1st anniversary of death, Ärzteblatt Thüringen, vol. 16.2005, 1, p. 45

Web links

Commons : Anton Horn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• "Analytics" working group at the Institute for Biochemistry at FSU Jena
• SUMA
• CyBio-AG
• Literature by and about Anton Horn in the catalog of the German National Library