Gerhard Schramm (biochemist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gerhard Schramm (born June 27, 1910 in Yokohama ; † February 3, 1969 in Tübingen ) was a pioneer in virology and one of the fundamental researchers in the field of genetics .

Life

Gerhard Schramm was born on June 27, 1910 in Yokohama and passed the Abitur at the Matthias-Claudius-Gymnasium in Hamburg on March 7, 1929 . He then studied chemistry until 1933 with Adolf Windaus at the University of Göttingen and with Heinrich Otto Wieland at the Technical University of Munich . Then he followed Adolf Butenandt to the Technical University of Danzig , where he continued his chemistry studies. In 1936 Max Planck appointed Professor Butenandt as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem and Schramm followed him. On August 27, 1936 he received his doctorate with a thesis "On the synthesis of 1-keto-7-oxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydrophenanthrene" at the University of Göttingen .

Schramm joined the SS as a student in Danzig in 1933 and left the SS in 1937 for personal reasons. During this time he held no offices and was not active. Since 1937 he was a candidate for the NSDAP . During the war Schramm was placed in the uk.

On July 17, 1941, Schramm became head of the chemical department at the Virus Research Center at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem. On April 21, 1944 , he completed his habilitation in Berlin with a thesis on the "biochemistry of viruses" and became a private lecturer there . In 1944, his virus research group was relocated to Tübingen , where he was appointed lecturer at the university on February 1, 1951 . On July 22, 1952, he became a scientific member and department head at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Tübingen and on January 30, 1953, an adjunct professor at the University of Tübingen. From 1956 he was director at the Max Planck Institute for Virus Research in Tübingen (today the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology ).

Gerhard Schramm married Hilla Schramm, born on July 30, 1938. Leg. The marriage had four children.

plant

Using the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) model, Schramm investigated the structure and organization of simple viruses. By demonstrating the infectivity of protein-free nucleic acids , he was able to conclusively prove that the nucleic acids are the carriers of genetic information. Targeted chemical reactions on intact nucleic acids generated in vitro mutations , the cause of which was traced back to clearly formulated molecular processes. This procedure became particularly important in the elucidation of the genetic code . The phenolic process he developed also led to the discovery of the various types of ribonucleic acids found in normal cells .

Schramm's scientific life fell at a time of revolutionary biological knowledge, to which he made significant contributions through his work. He will therefore always have to be counted among the founders of the modern branch of science known as “molecular biology”.

In the memory book The Double Helix by James Watson there is a statement that pays tribute to Schramm's achievements and the conditions under which he worked at the time: “The experiments by German Gerhard Schramm, first described in 1944, showed that TMV particles in mild alkalis disintegrated into free ribonucleic acids and a large number of similar, perhaps even identical, protein molecules. But outside of Germany, practically no one thought Schramm's results were correct. The war was to blame for that; for most people it was inconceivable that the German beasts should have allowed the extensive experiments on which Schramm's claims were based to be carried out properly in the last years of the war, which was already beginning to end so miserably. ”(In: Gerhard Schramm : Blueprints of life . Munich, p. 10f.)

Gerhard Schramm was not only a scientist, but also dealt intensively with philosophical questions. In addition to his more than 200 scientific publications, he dealt in several articles with problems at the interface between natural sciences and philosophy. See for example his books Animate Matter (Opuscula 15, Verlag Günther Neske, Pfullingen) and Blueprints of Life (Piper Verlag Munich, 1971), where he deals with questions of "Idea and Matter in Modern Biology", or about "The phenomenon of the mind from the point of view of molecular biology".

Memberships

Honors

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State Archives Simaringen. Akt -zeichen WÜ 13 T 2, State Commissariat for the Political Cleansing. Militaire en Allemagne governorate. Questionnaire.
personal data
SURNAME Schramm, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geneticist
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Yokohama
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1969
Place of death Tübingen