Gerhard Heldmaier

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Gerhard Walter Heldmaier (* 1941 in Schrozberg ) is a German zoologist and physiologist ( animal physiology ).

Life

Heldmaier received his doctorate in zoology under Franz Peter Möhres at the University of Tübingen in 1969 ( The thermogenesis of the mouse-eared bat (Myotis myotis Borkh.) When waking up from hibernation ). As a post-doctoral student he was at the ARC Institute for Animal Physiology in Babraham (1972), at the University of Gießen (Institute for Physiology, 1971) and at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Andechs (1968 to 1970 and 1973 to 1976) Jürgen Aschoff , whose assistant he became in 1973. In 1975 he completed his habilitation at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich ; as an assistant at the Max Planck Institute, he became a member of the DFG priority program Physiological Mechanisms of Ecological Adaptation in Animals . In 1976 he was appointed professor of metabolic physiology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , where he was director of the Zoological Institute from 1980 to 1981. In 1982 he became professor for animal physiology at the Philipps University of Marburg . From 2004 to 2009 he was also vice president of the university.

plant

Heldmaier researched metabolic processes in endogenous animals such as mammals and birds, especially in hibernation , torpor and in seasonal adaptation, thermogenesis , regulation of temperature and weight and the bioenergetics of mitochondria (role of the uncoupling protein , UCP). In particular, he used the Djungarian hamster, various mice, dormice and alpine marmot as experimental animals, and he investigated the physiological mechanisms of adaptation, for example to cold periods and dry periods, which he investigated down to the level of molecular biology and genetics using the appropriate experimental methods. In addition, he also examined cold-blooded animals such as lizards and bees.

In the 1970s, he discovered that the formation of brown adipose tissue is stimulated by the hormone melatonin , which in turn is released more and more as the day length decreases, thus creating fat reserves for hibernation .

At his institute it was discovered, among other things, that monkeys (Madagascan mouse lemurs ) are in principle capable of hibernation (seasonal reduction in body temperature). Thanks to the research of his group, the view prevailed that basically all warm-blooded animals can reduce body temperature and thus energy consumption to a greater or lesser extent in response to environmental conditions. The paradigm shift that this initiated also had an impact on human medicine. Heldmaier also refuted the view that the reduction in body temperature alone is responsible for the lower energy consumption.

In 2006 he discovered a mechanism of fat breakdown in tissue. This requires lipases such as adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL), the inactivation of which in gene mice led to fat storage in the heart and premature death, among other things. The enzyme also plays a role in thermogenesis in cold adaptation and in insulin resistance (when less ATGL is available, glucose consumption increases and, as a result, glucose tolerance increases).

Honors, memberships, editing

In 2008 he received the Karl-Ritter-von-Frisch Medal of the German Zoological Society .

Heldmaier is chairman of the Senate Commission for Animal Experimental Research of the German Research Foundation . Since 2004 he has been chairman of the zoology review board of the DFG, of which he was also a member of the senate. 1997/98 he was President of the German Zoological Society . He was president of the International Hibernation Society.

He is the editor of the Journal of Comparative Physiology B .

Fonts

  • with Gerhard Neuweiler : Comparative Animal Physiology , 2 volumes. Springer, 2004 (Volume 1: with Neuweiler: Neuro- and Sensory Physiology , Volume 2: G. Heldmaier: Vegetative Physiology )
  • with Dietrich Werner (Ed.): Environmental Signal Processing and Adaptation . Springer Verlag, 2003
  • with Martin Klingenspor (ed.): Life in the Cold . Springer Verlag, 2003

Some essays (other essays are cited in the footnotes):

  • Shiver-free heat generation and body size in mammals . In: Journal for Comparative Physiology , Volume 73, 1971, pp. 222–248
  • with S. Steinlechner, J. Rafael, P. Vsiansky: Photoperiodic control and effects of melatonin on nonshivering thermogenesis and brown adipose tissue . In: Science , Vol. 212, 1981, pp. 917-919
  • with Thomas Ruf: Body temperature and metabolic rate during natural hypothermia in endotherms . In: J Comp Physiol B , Vol. 162, pp. 696-706
  • Physiology. Life on low flame in hibernation . In: Science , Volume 331, 2011, pp. 866-867

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Biography on the occasion of a lecture at the Institute of Arctic Biology in 2009
  2. ^ Heldmaier, Klaus Hoffmann: Melatonin stimulates Growth of Brown Adipose Tissue . In: Nature , Volume 247, 1975, pp. 224-225, abstract
  3. ↑ KH Dausmann, J. Glos, JU Ganzhorn, G. Heldmaier: Hibernation in a tropical primate . In: Nature , Volume 429, 2005, pp. 825-826. The same: Hibernation in the tropics, lessons from a primate . In: J. Comp. Physiol. B , Volume 175, 2005, pp. 147-155
  4. ↑ Haemmerle, Heldmaier u. a .: Defective lipolysis and altered energy metabolism in mice lacking adipose triglyceride lipase . In: Science , Volume 312, 2006, pp. 734-737, PMID 16675698
  5. ↑ Walter Arnold: Laudation Karl Ritter von Frisch Prize (PDF; 71.9 kB)
  6. ↑ Senate Commission for Animal Experimental Research DFG, accessed June 22, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Heldmaier, Gerhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heldmaier, Gerhard Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German animal physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Schrozberg