Leonhard Birkofer

Leonhard Birkofer (born July 5, 1911 in Fürth ; † December 29, 2015 ) was a German chemist .

Life

Birkofer was born in Fürth in 1911. He studied chemistry at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg until 1935 , which he left after completing his doctorate . Between 1935 and 1937 Birkofer worked as an assistant. From 1937 to 1954 he worked for Richard Kuhn , a Nobel Prize winner who became famous through involvement in the National Socialist regime and its ideology, in Heidelberg at the then Institute for Chemistry of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research . In 1943, Birkofer at Kuhn's Institute developed a new bacteriostatic agent, 2,2'-dihydroxy-5,5'-dibromosalicil. From 1949 he worked as a lecturer at theTechnical University of Stuttgart for Organic Chemistry. In 1954 he became a regular full professor at the University of Cologne and was a professor from 1964 to 1965.

In 1965 he went to the then newly founded Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), then still University of Düsseldorf . Birkofer was a professor here from 1965 to 1979. He was also director and co-founder of the Institute for Organic Chemistry and Macromolecular Chemistry.

After his retirement in 1980, he remained very attached to the HHU.

Researches

Birkofer was particularly concerned with the amino acids . He succeeded in discovering a new synthesis of the essential amino acid threonine . Another of his research areas was the chemistry of organosilicon compounds . He was the first to succeed in combining inorganic silicon with organic amino acids . Birkofer's complete results can be found in over 200 publications.

swell

• Biography on the website of the University of Düsseldorf
• Article on the 95th birthday of Leonhard Birkofer on the website of the University of Düsseldorf
• Obituary on the website of the University of Düsseldorf

Individual evidence

1. ^ Richard Kuhn, 1900-1967 ; here: p. 11 (.pdf)