Heinz-Günter Wittmann

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Heinz-Günter Wittmann (born January 16, 1927 in Groß Stürlack , Lötzen district , East Prussia ; † March 31, 1990 ) was a German biochemist who was best known for his work on the elucidation of the ribosome structure.

Life

Wittmann was born in Groß Stürlack in East Prussia and grew up on his parents' estate Marienhof there. At the age of 16 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and was taken prisoner by the British in May 1945 . After his release in June 1945, he first went to look for his family and tried to get back to East Prussia. He was arrested again in the Soviet occupation zone , but was able to escape. After the family was reunited with the exception of his father, but had become completely destitute due to the war, he hired himself out to earn a living in Westphalia as a farm worker on farms. In 1947 he graduated from high school and from 1949 began studying agriculture at the Stuttgart-Hohenheim Agricultural University, which later became the Technical University of Stuttgart . He completed this in 1951 with the diploma thesis " The problem of plant immunity, especially against viral diseases ". He then studied biology and chemistry at the University of Tübingen , where he received his doctorate in genetics under Georg Melchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in 1956 . The subject of his dissertation was " Investigations into the significance of temperature and genetic constitution for the mutability of bacteriophages ".

From 1956 to 1957 Wittmann went to the University of California, Berkeley on a research grant . After his return to Germany he got a job at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen with Georg Melchers , from 1962 he became a private lecturer in genetics at the University of Tübingen. In 1964 Wittmann became director of the newly founded Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin-Dahlem and from 1968 professor in Berlin . In 1964 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina and in 1979 a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

tomb

He was a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin and received an honorary doctorate in 1978 from the Faculty of Human Medicine at the Free University of Berlin . From 1989 to 1990 he was chairman of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors . He worked in Berlin until shortly before his death in 1990. He is buried in the Dahlem forest cemetery.

He was married to the multiple award-winning chemist Brigitte Wittmann-Liebold (* 1931).

Knud Nierhaus is one of his students .

plant

Wittmann researched the genetic code and the tobacco mosaic virus , but his focus was on researching the ribosomes . He made significant contributions to the elucidation of the structure and biogenesis of these cell organelles and examined the effect of antibiotics on protein synthesis . He was the first to recognize the ribosome as the basis of protein biosynthesis in the cell and clarified the structural and functional topography of the same.

Publications (selection)

  • Ribosomes and Protein Biosynthesis. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1979.
  • Approaches to deciphering the genetic code. In: Naturwissenschaften 48, 1961
  • Ribosomal protein 12: Number of proteins in small and large ribosomal subunits of Escherichia coli as determined by two-dimensional gel-electrophoresis. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 67, 1970.
  • The protein factories of the cell. Structure and mode of operation of the ribosomes , lecture at the general meeting of the Max Planck Society in 1976 in Stuttgart, in: Max Planck Society, Yearbook 1976, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1976, pp. 19-39,

Honors

literature

  • Wittmann, Heinz-Günter. In: Ilse Jahn: History of Biology. Theories, methods, institutions, short biographies. Nikol VG Spectrum, Hamburg 2004; Page 885. ISBN 3-937872-01-9
  • Hans-Jörg Rheinberger : Heinz-Günter Wittmann - a pioneer of the genetic code , in: Biospektrum 07/2018, pp. 754–755.

Web links

supporting documents

Evidence cited

  1. ^ Member entry of Günter Wittmann (with picture) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 11, 2016.
  2. ↑ Honorary doctorates at the Free University of Berlin
  3. ^ Message from the MDC Berlin about the award of the Beckurts Prize to Wittmann-Liebold, accessed February 11, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Wittmann, Heinz-Günter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Groß Stürlack (East Prussia)
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1990