Heinz Tiedemann

Heinz Tiedemann (born February 16, 1923 in Berlin ; † August 2004 ) was a German biochemist and developmental biologist .

Tiedemann grew up in Berlin and from 1941 studied medicine in Berlin and Freiburg. He then studied chemistry with Else Knake in Berlin and received his doctorate in medicine. He then obtained his doctorate as Dr. rer. nat. with the biochemist Otto Warburg at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology (later: Max Planck Institute for Cell Physiology) in Berlin-Dahlem and proved that embryonic inductors are proteins and established phenol extraction for the separation of proteins from nucleic acids. From 1954 he worked with Otto Mangold at the Heiligenberg Institute for Experimental Biology in Heiligenberg and completed his habilitation in 1957 at the University of Freiburg. From 1963 to 1965 he was with his wife in Baltimore, USA.

After his return he became head of a working group at what was then the Max Planck Institute for Marine Biology in Wilhelmshaven and in 1967 Professor of Biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin . He isolated and purified the activin A and other factors that are required for the differentiation of tissues , and thus contributed to knowledge about stem cells .

His work was characterized, among other things, by his ability to integrate new methods into his way of working and therefore always to be technically very modern.

literature

• Horst Grunz: The long road to chemical and molecular embryology. What amphibians can teach us about differentiation. An interview with Professor Heinz Tiedernann . In: The international journal of developmental biology . Volume 40, 1996, pp. 113-122, PMID 8735920 (interview with Heinz Tiedemann, English, free full text).

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinz Tiedemann in the catalog of the German National Library