Karl-Wolfgang Zschiesche

Karl-Wolfgang Zschiesche (born March 14, 1933 in Merseburg , † October 29, 1996 in Berlin ) was a German doctor and pathologist . From 1962 to 1979 he worked at the Central Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy , a non-university research facility of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR , as a department head. He then moved to the Central Institute for Molecular Biology at the Academy in Berlin-Buch , where he was director from 1981 to 1984.

Life

Karl-Wolfgang Zschiesche was born in Merseburg in 1933 , where he attended elementary school and high school. He then studied human medicine from 1951 to 1957 at the Martin Luther University in Halle . After receiving his doctorate in 1957, he remained as a research assistant at the Institute for Pathology there until 1961 and then worked for a year at the university's second medical clinic. In 1962 he received his habilitation and moved to the Central Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy of the German Academy of Sciences in Jena , where he was given a position as a working group leader. At the institute, where he stayed until 1979, he headed the Immunopathology Department from 1971 and the Experimental Therapy department from 1976.

In the same year Karl-Wolfgang Zschiesche was appointed professor of experimental chemotherapy and immunopathology by the academy . Three years later he moved to the Central Institute for Molecular Biology (ZIM) of the Academy, based in Berlin-Buch , where he was initially deputy director and from 1981 he succeeded Friedrich Jung as director. From 1984 he was limited in his professional work due to illness, his successor as director of the ZIM was the immunologist Günter Pasternak . However, Karl-Wolfgang Zschiesche continued to devote himself to scientific work and led a working group at the Academy's research center for vertebrate research under Heinrich Dathe at the end of the 1980s . In 1989 he became deputy chairman of the newly established Center for Medical Science at the Academy.

After the political change in the GDR he stayed at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine , the successor to the Central Institute for Molecular Biology, until shortly before his death . He died in Berlin in 1996 . He found his final resting place in the Pankow XII cemetery in field 4-339.

Scientific work

Karl-Wolfgang Zschiesche's research interests included the metastasis of malignant tumors of the chest cavity and the experimental treatment of amyloidosis . In addition, he worked on the development of methods for testing virostatics , cytostatics and immunosuppressants as well as the role of cytokines in the immune response . In the course of his career he published over 80 scientific publications and gave around 60 lectures.

Awards

Karl-Wolfgang Zschiesche was a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina from 1969 and was also a corresponding member of the GDR Academy of Sciences from 1981 .

Works (selection)

• Chemical immunosuppression. Barth, Leipzig 1975
• Immunopathology of Viral Diseases. VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1977 (as co-editor)
• Immune Modulation by Infectious Agents. VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1987
• Mammary-Derived Growth Inhibitor (MDGI). In: Robert B. Dickson, Marc E. Lippman: Genes, Oncogenes, and Hormones: Advances in Cellular and Molecular Biology of Breast Cancer. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston 1992, pp. 69–96 (with other authors)

literature

• Zschiesche, Karl-Wolfgang . In: Werner Hartkopf:The Berlin Academy of Sciences. Its members and award winners 1700–1990. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1992,ISBN 3-05-002153-5, p. 405.
• Werner Scheler : Honorable Memory: Wolfgang Zschiesche. Obituary in: Leibniz Intern. Communications from the Leibniz Society. No. 4 of October 1, 2000. Published by the Presidium of the Leibniz Society, p. 5/6