Hanspaul Hagenmaier

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Hanspaul Hagenmaier (born December 31, 1934 in Geislingen an der Steige ; † March 13, 2013 ) was a German university professor and researcher at the Institute for Organic Chemistry at the University of Tübingen .

Career

Hanspaul Hagenmaier studied chemistry at the University of Tübingen from 1954 to 1961 and joined the Guestfalia student association there . He then studied until 1965 Biochemistry at Cornell University Medical School in New York and received his doctorate at the peptide chemist and Nobel laureate Vincent du Vigneaud for PhD . In 1966 he got a call to Tübingen, where in 1965 under the direction of Professor Dr. Ernst Bayer at the Institute for Organic Chemistry a new focus for peptide and protein chemistry was established. In 1969 he completed his habilitation in organic chemistry and biochemistry. He became a university lecturer in 1970, an adjunct professor in 1973 and a scientific councilor and professor for the special field of stereochemistry at the University of Tübingen in 1975. During a one-year research stay in 1971 with Christian B. Anfinsen at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda , Maryland , he examined myoglobin , the red oxygen carrier in muscles.

He succeeded in proving experimentally that the use of the so-called solid-phase synthesis method by Robert Bruce Merrifield , who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1984, leads to incorrect sequences in the peptide chain. He used mass spectrometry for analytical detection . He wrote important papers on highly toxic and carcinogenic dioxins , which were released in large quantities in the 1976 chemical accident in Seveso . He developed specific GC - MS methods for the quantitative detection of the smallest amounts of dioxins. He was able to show that when organic substances are burned in the presence of chlorine compounds, dioxins are always formed. In the fly ash from waste incineration plants, for example, this leads to problems and threats to the health of the population. After a detailed analytical investigation of the combustion processes, he was able to develop a "dioxin crasher" in collaboration with engineers from the Stuttgart Technical Works, the use of which drastically reduces the dioxin content emitted and thus made the operation of waste incineration plants safer.

family

He married Marianne Christian in the USA in 1962.

Appreciation

His work, which is important for practical environmental protection, earned him the nickname “Dioxin Pope”. In 1987 he was honored with the Clean Technology Award of the EU in Brussels and the Philip Morris Research Prize and in 1988 with the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon . In 1993 he received the prize from the Safety Technology and Environmental Protection Foundation of the Palatinate Technical Monitoring Association.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Günter Häfelinger: specialist for dioxins and peptide specialist. On the death of Professor Hanspaul Hagenmaier. Newsletter Uni Tübingen current No. 1/2013 - April 26, 2013.
  2. ^ Philip Morris Research Award . In: Dust - cleanliness. Air . 47, No. 7/8, 1987, ISSN  0949-8036 , p. 215.
personal data
SURNAME Hagenmaier, Hanspaul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nuclear medicine specialist, endocrinologist and professor of internal medicine
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Geislingen an der Steige
DATE OF DEATH 13th March 2013
Place of death uncertain: Tübingen