George Barger

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George Barger

George Barger (born April 4, 1878 in Manchester , † January 5, 1939 in Aeschi , Switzerland ) was a British biochemist.

Barger had an English mother and a Dutch father (engineer) and went to school in Utrecht . He studied at University College London and chemistry and botany at King's College, Cambridge University . He then worked for two years as a demonstrator in the Faculty of Botany at the University of Brussels . There he developed a method for determining molecular mass that was named after him. In 1903 he returned to England and went to the Wellcome Laboratories. From 1909 he was Professor and Head of the Faculty of Chemistry at Goldsmith's College, University of London and from 1913 Professor at Royal Holloway College, University of London. During World War I he did research for the Medical Research Committee, where he worked with Henry Hallett Dale . From 1919 he was a professor at the University of Edinburgh (on a newly created chair for chemistry related to medicine) and most recently from 1938 until his death Regius professor for chemistry at the University of Glasgow . In 1928 he was visiting professor at Cornell University . In 1932 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

He mainly examined alkaloids and their biological effects. For example, he identified various natural substances such as tyramine and later histamine in ergot (as well as acetylcholine ). He was the first to show the presence of histamine in animal tissue (the intestines). He also made contributions to the synthesis of thyroxine (by Charles Robert Harington ) and vitamin B1 (by Alexander Robertus Todd ) and synthesized methionine .

In 1937 he received the Cothenius Medal . In 1919 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society , whose Davy Medal he received in 1938. In 1904 he became a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. In 1922 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1928 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Since 1929 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The University of Glasgow Story George Barger ; from the University of Glasgow website, accessed January 20, 2015.
  2. ^ Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed October 8, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 31.
  4. ^ Member entry by George Barger (with a link to an obituary) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on January 8, 2017.

Web links

  • Obituary by CR Harington, Biochem J. Jun 1939; 33 (6): 859-864. PMC 1264458 (free full text)
personal data
SURNAME Barger, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British chemist
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Manchester
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1939
Place of death Aeschi