Lothar Willmitzer
Lothar Willmitzer (born March 27, 1952 in Osterburg (Altmark) ) is a German plant physiologist and molecular biologist.
Willmitzer studied chemistry at the TU Braunschweig with a diploma in 1975, received his doctorate there in 1977 in molecular biology and completed his habilitation in genetics at the University of Cologne in 1983 (where he was at the Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research). In 1986 he became Professor of Molecular Biology at the Free University of Berlin and Director of the Institute for Gene Biological Research. Since 1994 he has been the founding director and director of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm (Potsdam) near Potsdam. He is also an honorary professor at the Free University of Berlin and at the University of Potsdam .
He is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the metabolomics research area . Initially, he investigated enzymes and genes for building starch in plants. This resulted in the start-up PlantTec he founded in Potsdam- Hermannswerder in 1996 , where he genetically engineered potatoes, corn and cereals with a higher starch content. In 2010 the company was taken over by Bayer CropScience.
He then examined the wide range of plant metabolic products using mass spectrometry and localized the corresponding genes by deliberately switching off genes. He thus became one of the founders of metabolomics and applied the findings in his startup metanomics , which was taken over by BASF . In particular, he analyzed the genetic make-up and metabolic products of thale cress ( Arabidopsis thaliana ) with the aim of applying it to crops. He also founded another metabolomics startup Metasysx and Targenomix , which studies the effects of small molecules on plant cells.
In 1999 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldia . In 2015 he received the Science Prize: Research between Basics and Applications . In 2017 he became chairman of the Biological-Medical Section of the Max Planck Society.
Web links
- Member entry by Prof. Dr. Lothar Willmitzer at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on March 8, 2018.
- Homepage at the MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology
- Biography at the MPG
Individual evidence
- ↑ Date of birth according to Kürschner's Scholarly Calendar 2009
- ↑ Pioneer of metabolomics: Lothar Willmitzer receives Stifterverbandspreis 2015 , press release MPI Molecular Plant Physiology, June 16, 2015.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Willmitzer, Lothar |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German plant physiologist and molecular biologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 27, 1952 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Osterburg (Altmark) |