Hans Knöll

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Hans Knöll (born January 7, 1913 in Wiesbaden ; † June 26, 1978 in Stralsund ) was a German doctor and microbiologist . He founded the Central Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR , which he headed until 1976. In addition, from 1950 he was professor of bacteriology at the University of Jena .

Life

Hans Knöll was born in Wiesbaden in 1913 and studied medicine in Frankfurt am Main from 1931 to 1935 . In 1932 he became a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), and from 1932 to 1935 he was also a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA). From 1935 he was initially a research assistant at the Paul Ehrlich Institute for Experimental Therapy in Frankfurt am Main and also dealt with the filtration of bacteria. For those in the Jena glassworks Schott & Gen. With the newly developed filter made entirely of glass, he worked out an accurate test method in 1937. This was followed by the offer to set up a bacteriological laboratory in the Jena glassworks, which he began in November 1938.

Among other things, he was interested in the new antibiotic agent penicillin , which a British research team was able to isolate in 1939. After a few attempts, it was possible to obtain this active ingredient from cultures of Penicillium notatum and to manufacture it on a laboratory scale in Jena in 1942; the first application - as a wound powder for a festering hand injury - on humans took place in the same year. The first large-scale penicillin production on the European mainland did not begin until later, with the end of the Second World War . Schott's bacteriological laboratory was expanded to include 15 employees in 1944 and became the Institute for Microbiology (Schott-Zeiss-Institut). After July 1945 this was now in the Soviet zone of occupation, and the new military administration ordered the rapid expansion of penicillin production. The expanded fermentation department was called Jenapharm in 1947 and grew to over 800 employees.

In 1950 the state-owned pharmaceutical company VEB Jenapharm was created , of which Hans Knöll became the first director.

In 1949 Hans Knöll became a lecturer and a year later professor for bacteriology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena . Four years later, the "Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy" (IMET), which he initiated and directed, began research operations, which was taken over by the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1956 and renamed the Central Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (ZIMET) in 1970 has been. The institute's location on the Beutenberg in Jena developed into the largest bioscientific research center in the GDR.

Hans Knöll died in Stralsund in 1978 as a result of a heart attack on the ferry island . His successor as director of ZIMET was Udo Taubeneck in 1976 .

Awards and commemorations

Hans Knöll was a full member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin from 1955 and belonged to the Leopoldina from 1972 . In addition, he received the National Prize of the GDR in 1949 and 1952 and the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver in 1978 . One of the institutes that emerged from the ZIMET after German reunification has had his name since 1992 , initially as the "Hans Knöll Institute for Natural Product Research" (HKI), and since 2005 as the " Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology - Hans- Knöll Institute ".

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jochen Richter :  Knöll, Hans . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  2. ↑ a b H. Bocker, W. Knorre: Antibiotica Research in Jena from Penicillin and Nourseothricin to Interferon. In: History of Modern Biotechnology II. Advances in Biochemical Engineering / Biotechnology. Volume 70.Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg, 2000, ISBN 3-540-44965-5 , pp. 35f, ( online ).
  3. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , 25./26. February 1978, p. 4

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personal data
SURNAME Knoll, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and microbiologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1978
Place of death Stralsund