Hermann Otto Laurenz Fischer

Hermann Otto Laurenz Fischer (* 16th December 1888 in Würzburg ; † 9. March 1960 in Berkeley , California ) was a from Germany originating American chemist ( Organic Chemistry , Biochemistry ).

He was the son of the chemist and Nobel Prize winner Emil Fischer . He studied chemistry at the University of Cambridge (1907), in Berlin and at the University of Jena (from 1909), where he in 1912 at Ludwig Knorr with the work to knowledge of acetylacetone doctorate was. He then went to the University of Berlin . During the First World War he served in a chemical warfare unit. Then he was back in Berlin, where he completed his habilitation in 1927. With the rise of the National Socialists he wanted to leave Germany and went to Switzerland. In 1932 he became a professor at the University of Basel (Institute for Pharmaceutical Chemistry), in 1937 at the University of Toronto (Research Professor for Organic Chemistry at the Banting Institute) and in 1948 at the University of California, Berkeley . There he was in the Faculty of Biochemistry and from 1952 until his retirement in 1957 its chairman.

The aldehyde synthesis according to Grosheintz-Fischer-Reissert and the breakdown of aldoses according to Macdonald-Fischer (1952) are named after him. He clarified the structure of quinic acid (1932) and with Erich Baer he succeeded in preparing glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (also called Fischer-Baer ester), an important compound in cell metabolism (intermediate product in glucose breakdown). It dealt with acylglycerols (purification and synthesis), synthesized hexoses and inositols from the condensation of trioses , determined the structure of inositols and dealt with the synthesis of phospholipids and last of amino sugars . He developed a cyanohydrin synthesis using nitromethane.

In 1955 he received the Adolf von Baeyer memorial coin , in 1949 the Sugar Research Foundation Award and in 1958 the Claude S. Hudson Award . In 1954 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1959 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Giessen . A commemorative publication was published in the Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics on his 70th birthday .

He campaigned for displaced scientists and civil internees in both Toronto and California. He bequeathed his chemistry library of 4,000 volumes (some inherited from his father) to the University of California at Berkeley, where it is in the biochemistry and virus laboratory.

Fischer had been married to Ruth Seckels since 1922, with whom he had a daughter and two sons.

Web links

• Biography in Berkeley
• Biography at the Royal Society of Chemistry
• Biography in the Chemie Forum Erkner

Individual evidence

1. ^ Biographical data, publications and academic family tree of Hermann OL Fischer at academictree.org, accessed on February 6, 2018.