Heinz Schaller

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Heinz Schaller (born February 1, 1932 in Lörrach ; † April 10, 2010 ) was a German molecular biologist and virologist. He was a professor at the University of Heidelberg and one of the founders of the Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg (ZMBH) there in 1982 . He is also a co-founder of Biogen (1978).

Life

Schaller was the son of a toolmaker. He graduated from secondary school while working as a chemical laboratory assistant at BASF . From 1954 he studied chemistry in Heidelberg and received his doctorate in 1960 under Friedrich Cramer . He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Har Gobind Khorana at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1961/62 , where he developed techniques for RNA and DNA synthesis with Khorana (for example protective groups in oligonucleotide synthesis in Khorana's group) and he did the first Synthesis of an oligonucleotide from five bases with a given sequence succeeded. From 1963 he worked for Gerhard Schramm at the Max Planck Institute for Virus Research in Tübingen , where he became group leader in 1968. There he sequenced bacteriophage genes and examined DNA replication and the enzymes involved , which also enabled the genetic engineering of DNA outside of cells. With Friedrich Bonhoeffer he described the enzyme DNA polymerase III. He also succeeded in characterizing a promoter box in the bacterial genome that is named after him ( Pribnow-Schaller box ). In 1974 he went to Heidelberg as a professor, where he was professor of microbiology and molecular biology and retired in 2000, but also remained scientifically active at the ZMBH afterwards.

In 1978 he co-founded Biogen with Walter Gilbert , Phillip Sharp and Charles Weissmann . The company was one of the first spin-offs in molecular biology.

In the late 1970s in Heidelberg he turned to research on the hepatitis B virus. He sequenced the genome of the virus with Walter Gilbert and Ken Murray and was significantly involved in the development of a vaccine that was used worldwide using recombinant DNA technology.

One of his doctoral students in Tübingen was Nobel Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard .

Honors

In 2004 he received the Robert Koch Medal and in 2008 the Loeffler Frosch Medal of the Society for Virology .

Foundation, endowment

With his wife Chica Schaller , a biologist and former director of the Institute for Developmental Neurobiology at the Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg (ZMNH) at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf , he founded the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation to promote biomedical research . The foundation supports young scientists at Heidelberg University by financing research groups, grants and the annual award of the Chica and Heinz Schaller sponsorship award, endowed with 100,000 euros .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schaller, Weimann, Lerch, Khorana, Study of Polynucleotides XXIV, The stepwise synthesis of selected Deoxyribopolynucleotides. Protected derivatives of deoxypolynucleosides and new synthesis of Deoxyribonucleoside-3´´- Phosphates, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 85, 1963, 3821-27
  2. ↑ Hogrefe, A short history of oligonucleotide synthesis, pdf ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Bernd Bukau, Hans-Georg Kräusslich, obituary for Schaller
personal data
SURNAME Schaller, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German molecular biologist and virologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Loerrach
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 2010
Place of death Heidelberg