Gertrude Henle

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Gertrude Henle (born Szpingier April 3, 1912 in Mannheim ; died September 1, 2006 in Newtown Square , Pennsylvania ) was an American virologist.

Life

Gertrude Szpingier was a daughter of the city official Theophil Szpingier and Leonore Baumgart. She grew up in Mannheim. Her mother was murdered by the National Socialists in 1943, her father died in 1938. Szpingier studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg from 1931 , where she received her doctorate in 1936 under Ludolf von Krehl ( The metabolism of isolated fatty tissue ). For her doctoral thesis she was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, where she met her husband Werner Henle , whom she followed to the United States in Philadelphia in 1937, where they married in 1937. Both worked closely together in their careers. She was from 1937 instructor for microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania , 1941 associate professor for virology (and member of the research department for virology at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia). She later became a professor. She retired in 1982, the same year as her husband.

Gertrude and Werner Henle are known for their work on flu vaccination and the development of a test for mumps . They also demonstrated the carcinogenic effects of the Epstein-Barr virus and examined other tumor viruses . Together with Joseph Stokes they demonstrated the effect of gamma globulin against hepatitis . She published over 200 scientific papers, mostly with her husband.

In the 1980s they dealt with AIDS.

In 1971 she received the Robert Koch Prize with Werner Henle , the William B. Coley Award in 1975 , the Bristol-Myers Award in 1979, the Virus Cancer Program Award (1975) and in 1983 the gold medal of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In 1975 she received an honorary doctorate from the Pennsylvania College of Medicine. In 1979 she was elected a member of the Leopoldina and the National Academy of Sciences .

She had been a US citizen since 1942.

Fonts

  • with Vincent Groupé, Werner Henle and others The viruses of human epidemic influenza and related problems , Philadelphia 1944
  • with Susanna Harris and others: Studies on the complement fixing antigens of Mumps Virus , Philadelphia 1948

literature

  • Reinhard Rürup : Fates and Careers: Commemorative book for the researchers expelled from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society by the National Socialists . With the participation of Michael Schüring. With an escort of the President of the Max Planck Society. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008 ISBN 978-3-89244-797-9 , pp. 218-220
  • Henle, Gertrude , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 489

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The certificate was only given to her after the war in 1948
personal data
SURNAME Henle, Gertrude
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American virologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 2006
Place of death Newtown Square , Pennsylvania