Lester O. Krampitz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lester Orville Krampitz (born July 9, 1909 in Maple Lake (Minnesota) , † May 18, 1993 ) was an American microbiologist .

biography

His father was the son of a German settler who settled in Wright County . Lester had two younger sisters. After elementary school, he attended Buffalo High School through 1927. Then he attended Macalester College . There he met Norma Peterson, whom he married in 1931. He also met Harland G. Wood there, who became his lifelong friend. In 1931 he graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry as the main subjects and German as a minor. In Taunton he was a teacher for a short time; the school was closed a little later. He then worked for a few months in a fast-food restaurant in Buffalo. Then he worked at a school in Sacred Heart . In 1932 his only daughter Joyce was born. The following year he became a teacher in Lake Crystal High School until 1938.

He then went to Iowa State University to take up research studies with Harland G. Wood. The project met with resistance, however, because Chester Hamlin Werkman , who had several laboratories there, complained that he had not worked in an academic environment for years. By attending a summer academy, he was able to dispel the concerns and got an assistant position. In 1942 he received the Ph.D. majoring in bacteriology and minor in biochemistry. As a post-doctoral researcher he spent a year at the Rockefeller University to antagonists to explore of vitamins. He then received a position from Werkman as an assistant professor at Iowa State University. In 1946 he accepted a position from Harland G. Wood for a position as assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University . Two years later he became professor and director of a newly created department for microbiology. Among the researchers who temporarily worked in his laboratories were Hans Günter Schlegel and Charles Yanofsky . He proposed Yanofsky in 1956 in a letter to Joshua Lederberg for the Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award , which was carried out in 1959.

The Fulbright program enabled Krampitz to do research on tartrates in Feodor Lynen's laboratory in 1955 , where he also met Otto Warburg . After a year back at Case Western Reserve University, Krampitz made a significant contribution to reforms of medical studies that were implemented nationwide in the USA and are still largely effective today. His research area remained the carbon metabolism of bacteria until he switched to the subject of biohydrogen in the context of the oil crisis in 1973 . In 1978 he resigned and retired. He kept a small laboratory and visited it every day until he fell ill in the early 1990s.

Awards

literature

  • Robert Hogg, Charles G. Miller, C. Willard Shuster: "Lester Orville Krampitz, 1909-1993", in: Biographical Memoirs 71, National Academy of Sciences, p. 97, 1997
  • Yearbook of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences: "Lester Orville Krampitz", 1995, p. 229

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Letter from Krampitz to Lederberg (PDF; 56 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Krampitz, Lester O.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krampitz, Lester Orville (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American microbiologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Maple Lake, Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1993