Klaus Kühn

Klaus Kühn (* 1. May 1927 in Breslau ) is an internationally recognized German scientists in he research the connective tissues - proteins .

Scientific work

His field of work was connective tissue research on a molecular basis, of which he is regarded in Germany as the founder. In particular, he researched the structure , biochemistry and immunochemistry of collagen , as well as related connective tissue diseases ( collagenoses ).

He made a decisive contribution to the elucidation of the structure of the collagen fibrils by means of an electron microscope.

A key result of the research he directed at the Max Planck Institute (from 1966) was the complete elucidation of the primary structure of type I collagen. This was a milestone in global protein sequencing , especially since the problem had to be solved that the type I collagen molecule consists of three polypeptide chains of two extremely similar isomers , each of which contains around 1000 amino acids. The structure was elucidated on both human and bovine molecules (Professor Pehr Edman , who developed the protein sequencing method, moved to the same institute in 1972).

The department for connective tissue research at the Max Planck Institute, headed by Professor Klaus Kühn, was the German reference center for questions relating to the extracellular matrix , with a focus on collagen and basement membrane structure .

The elucidation of the higher structures of type IV and type VI collagen and the discovery of laminin were further successes of the working group.

The molecular biological findings from collagen and connective tissue research were used in surgery , orthopedics , pathology , dermatology and human genetics .

Scientific career

• 1948 to 1955 studied chemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München with a doctorate as Dr. rer. nat.
• Research activity in Darmstadt
• Research activity in Heidelberg
• from 1966 scientific member of the Max Planck Society
• 1966 to 1973 director of the Max Planck Institute for Protein and Leather Research in Munich
• from 1973 director of the connective tissue research department at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich
• 1977–1980 Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry
• 1987 to 1990 chairman of the biological-medical section of the Max Planck Society

Awards

Numerous honors and prizes:

• Aschoff Medal of the Medical Society in Freiburg
• Fogharthy Scholarship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda , USA
• Honorary doctorate from the University of Oulu , Finland
• July 24, 1999 Honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Fonts

Over 260 original publications, books and book chapters:

• Kühn, K. (1974): Structure and Biochemistry of Collagen . In: Chemistry in our time , Volume 8 (4), 1974, pp. 97-103, doi : 10.1002 / ciuz.19740080402

literature

• Prof. Dr. Klaus van der Mark: Honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty to Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Klaus Kühn