Manfred M. Mayer

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Manfred Martin Mayer (born June 15, 1916 in Frankfurt am Main ; † September 18, 1984 in Baltimore ) was a German-American microbiologist and immunologist . He is considered the founder of complement research.

Live and act

Manfred M. Mayer attended elementary and secondary school in Germany. Mayer's family had to emigrate to the United States in December 1933 after the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists . Manfred M. Mayer received a bachelor's degree from City College of New York in 1938 and a Ph.D. from Michael Heidelberger at Columbia University in 1946. with a thesis on the chemical and immunological properties of phosphorylated albumin . With Heidelberger he published several papers on precipitin reactions and the cross-reactivity of different polysaccharides in the shell of Streptococcus pneumoniae . In 1943 Mayer married Elinor; the couple had four sons. Together with Elvin A. Kabat , Mayer published the textbook Experimental Immunochemistry , which had two editions and seven reprints between 1948 and 1984.

In 1946 Mayer became an assistant professor in the department of bacteriology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine , in 1948 he became an associate professor and in 1957 executive director. In 1960 he received a full professorship. At Johns Hopkins University, he explained the sequence of 18 enzyme reactions of the complement system , defined calcium and magnesium as cofactors of the complement system and described the lytic functioning of the system, which inserts a pore into the cell wall of the target cell. Other work by Mayer dealt with malaria , with the purification of the poliovirus , with lymphotoxin or the Treponema pallidum immobilization test, which, as a second test , showed fewer false positive results than using the hemagglutinin test ( TPHA ) alone .

Ishizaka Teruko was one of Mayer's students .

Awards (selection)

Web links

literature

  • Elvin A. Kabat : Obituary: Manfred Martin Mayer June 15, 1916-September 18, 1984. In: Journal of Immunology (Baltimore, Md.: 1950). Volume 134, Number 1, January 1985, pp. 654-656, ISSN  0022-1767 . PMID 3880578 .
  • KF Austen: Manfred Martin Mayer: June 15, 1916-September 18, 1984. In: Biographical memoirs. National Academy of Sciences (US). Vol. 59, 1990, pp. 257-280, PMID 11616159 . (Online) (PDF; 1.5 MB)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of Past AABB Award Recipients. In: aabb.org. Retrieved February 20, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Manfred M. Mayer at the National Academy of Sciences (nasonline.org); Retrieved February 15, 2013
  3. ↑ Manfred M. Mayer PhD at the Gairdner Foundation ; Retrieved February 15, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Manfred M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mayer, Manfred Martin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American microbiologist and immunologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1984
Place of death Baltimore