Hans Muxfeldt

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Hans Heinrich Muxfeldt (born July 14, 1927 in Burg auf Fehmarn ; † December 14, 1974 in Stuttgart ) was a German chemist ( organic chemistry ) and professor.

Life

Muxfeldt grew up as the son of Richard and Elisabeth Muxfeldt in Preetz , his father was a teacher (later rector of the secondary school in Preetz). Muxfeldt was a soldier between January 1943 and May 1945, then a prisoner of war until September 1945. He studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen with a diploma in 1952 and was there in 1953 when Hans Brockmann Dr. rer. nat. PhD (thesis topic: total synthesis of hypericin ). Until 1955 he worked in the environment of his mentor Hans Brockmann, one after the other, as a Liebig fellow and a fellow of the German Research Foundation (DFG) in Göttingen. Between 1955 and 1958 he worked as a research assistant at the Technical University of Braunschweig (TH Braunschweig; today: Technical University of Braunschweig ). He was then a private lecturer from 1958–1961 and senior engineer at the TH Braunschweig from 1959–1961. In 1961 Muxfeldt followed a call to the USA as "Associate Professor" at the University of Wisconsin ; in September 1962 he was appointed "full professor" there. In 1966 he became a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. At the beginning of the 1970s, he accepted an appointment at the University of Stuttgart that he had received in 1968 . He died surprisingly of a brain hemorrhage. His working group in Stuttgart was continued by his then post-doctoral student Günter Helmchen .

Research and work

In research, Muxfeldt dealt with natural product chemistry and the development of new synthetic methods. He was a consultant to several companies in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry (including Farbwerke Hoechst AG and Pfizer & Co. ).

In 1968, after years of research, he succeeded in the total synthesis of oxytetracycline (trade name Terramycin), a broad spectrum antibiotic discovered in 1949 by researchers at the Pfizer company, which previously could only be obtained from bacteria (Streptomyces). Robert B. Woodward clarified the complex chemical structure in 1952, but was skeptical at the time that the total synthesis could ever succeed. When Muxfeldt succeeded in doing this in 1968, it received international recognition as a great scientific breakthrough. Muxfeldt had already started work on it in Braunschweig at the end of the 1950s.

Important publications (selection)

  • Hans Brockmann, Hans Muxfeldt: The constitution of despeptido-actinomycins, actinomycins XVI. Message .; Actinomycete antibiotics, XXXV. Message. , Chemical Reports 89 (1956) 1379-1397, doi: 10.1002 / cber.19560890605 .
  • Hans Brockmann, Hans Muxfeldt: The synthesis of Despeptido-actinomycins, Actinomycins XVII. Message .; Actinomycete Antibiotics, XXXVI. Message. , Chemical Reports 89 (1956) 1397-1402, doi: 10.1002 / cber.19560890606 .
  • Hans Brockmann, Hans Muxfeldt, Gottfried Haese: Absorption increments of methyl and methoxy groups in methyl and methoxyacridones , Chemical Reports 89 (1956) 2174-2190, doi: 10.1002 / cber.19560890921 .
  • Hans Brockmann, Hans Muxfeldt, Gottfried Haese: Simple Acridone Quinones , Chemical Reports 90 (1957) 44-49, doi: 10.1002 / cber.19570900107 .
  • Hans Brockmann, Friedhelm Kluge, Hans Muxfeldt: Total synthesis of hypericin , Chemical Reports 90 (1957) 2302-2318, doi: 10.1002 / cber.19570901027 .
  • Hans Herloff Inhoffen , Jost Heimann-Trosien, Hans Muxfeldt, Hans Krämer: About the stereoisomers 1,4-diacetoxy-butadiene- (1,3) , Chemical Reports 90 (1957) 187-193, doi: 10.1002 / cber.19570900206 .
  • H. Muxfeldt, W. Rogalski, K. Striegler: Structure of the β-Tetracarbonyl-System der Tetracycline , Angewandte Chemie 72 (1960) 170-171, doi: 10.1002 / anie.19600720509 .
  • H. Muxfeldt: Syntheses in the Tetracycline Series , Angewandte Chemie, Volume 74, 1962, pp. 443-452.
  • H. Muxfeldt, R. Bangert: Chemistry of the Tetracycline , Advances in the chemistry of organic natural substances, Volume 21, 1963, pp. 80-120.
  • H. Muxfeldt, Werner Rogalski: Tetracyclines. V: A Total Synthesis of (±) -6-Deoxy-6-demethyltetracycline , J. Am. Chem. Soc. Volume 87, 1965, pp. 933-934.
  • H. Muxfeldt, Goetz Hardtmann, Faizulla Kathawala, Edwin Vedejs, Jared B. Mooberry: Tetracyclines. VII. Total synthesis of dl-terramycin , J. Am. Chem. Soc., Vol. 90, 1968, pp. 6534-6536.

Honors

  • Prize of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Göttingen for his excellent doctoral thesis (1954)
  • Pfizer Fellowship (1961)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data, publications and academic family tree of Hans Heinrich Muxfeldt at academictree.org, accessed on January 4, 2019.
  2. ↑ Biography of Helmchen as a Prelog Prize winner 1997 .
  3. ↑ Diabolic Chain , Der Spiegel , No. 38, September 16, 1968.
personal data
SURNAME Muxfeldt, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Muxfeldt, Hans Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist (organic chemistry) and professor
DATE OF BIRTH July 14, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Castle on Fehmarn
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1974
Place of death Stuttgart