Reinhart Heinrich

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Reinhart Heinrich, 2006

Reinhart Heinrich (born  April 24, 1946 in Dresden , †  October 23, 2006 in Berlin ) was a German biophysicist . From 1979 he worked as a lecturer and from 1993 until his death as a professor for theoretical biophysics at the Humboldt University in Berlin and is considered a co-founder of systems biology . His most important scientific achievement in the early 1970s was his contribution to the formulation of the metabolic control theory for the quantitative modeling of metabolic pathways .

Life

Reinhart Heinrich was born in Dresden in 1946 and initially lived with his parents in Kuibyshev in the Soviet Union , where his father Helmut Heinrich , a lecturer and later professor of applied mathematics in Breslau and Dresden, worked in aircraft construction as part of reparations payments . After the family returned to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), he completed his schooling in his hometown and then studied physics at the Technical University of Dresden , where he also received his doctorate in 1971 with a thesis on solid state physics .

He then moved to the Institute for Biochemistry at the Charité , headed by Samuel Mitja Rapoport . There he obtained his PhD B in 1977 , which corresponded to his habilitation in the GDR , in collaboration with Tom Rapoport . He then worked at the Institute for Biophysics of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin . There he acted as a lecturer from 1979 and from 1993 until his death as a professor of theoretical biophysics. From 1997 to 2006 he headed the Graduate College “Dynamics and Evolution of Cellular and Macromolecular Processes” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) .

Reinhart Heinrich, who in addition to his scientific work also published a philosophical-autobiographical novel and a volume of poetry , was married and the father of a son and a daughter. He died in Berlin in 2006.

Scientific work

One of the publications by Reinhart Heinrich and Tom Rapoport on metabolic control theory ( Eur J Biochem , 1974)

Reinhart Heinrich has published more than 160 scientific publications in the course of his career and was Associate Editor of the journal PLoS Computational Biology . His best-known and most influential achievement is his contribution to the development of metabolic control theory , a mathematical system for the quantitative description of metabolic pathways based on the concentrations and flux of chemical species . The theory, which he developed and published together with Tom Rapoport as part of his habilitation at the beginning of the 1970s, was developed simultaneously and independently and with different terminology by Henrik Kacser (1918–1995) and Jim Burns at the University of Edinburgh and later extended to the application for the description of signal and gene regulation pathways.

Based on this work he made fundamental contributions to the mathematical modeling and analysis of metabolic systems such as the metabolism of erythrocytes , the changes in the concentration of calcium in cells and glycolysis in yeast . In addition, he dealt with the quantitative description of membrane and signal transduction processes, with the design and optimization of enzymes , the thermodynamics and kinetics of biochemical reactions as well as with general theoretical aspects of the modeling of biological systems.

In much of Reinhart Heinrich's research, the concept of optimality in biology played a central role. As an optimality criterion he used, among other things, the maximization of the flow through metabolic pathways . When investigating the optimal stoichiometry of glycolysis , he found that the actually observed yield of two moles of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) per mole of glucose maximizes the rate of ATP formation. These investigations were continued by several of his students, including his successor Edda Klipp as well as Thomas Pfeiffer and Stefan Schuster . His students also include Matthias Gaestel , Volkmar Heinrich (not related) and Thomas Höfer .

Awards and commemorations

Reinhart Heinrich received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bordeaux II in 1996 and was accepted into the Leibniz Society in 2004 . In 2008, the Journal of Theoretical Biology published a special edition in his memory. The European Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ESMTB) annually awards the Reinhart Heinrich Doctoral Thesis Award for the best dissertation in the field of mathematical and theoretical biology .

For its 1987 New Publisher life , first published novel "Beyond Babylon" was Reinhart Heinrich in East Germany a year after the publication by the county council Erfurt verliehenem Louis Fürnberg price and with the Brigitte-Reimann Prize of the Writers' Union of the GDR awarded .

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his death, the 17th conference of the International Study Group for Systems Biology (ISGSB) in Jena was dedicated to his memory.

Works (selection)

Gravestone in the New Cemetery St. Marien-St. Nikolai

Basics of metabolic control theory (with Tom Rapoport )

  • Linear Theory of Enzymatic Chains; Its Application for the Analysis of the Crossover Theorem and of the Glycolysis of human Erythrocytes. In: Acta Biologica et Medica Germanica. 31/1973, pp. 479-494.
  • A linear steady-state treatment of enzymatic chains. General Properties, Control and Effector Strength. In: European Journal of Biochemistry . 42/1974, pp. 89-95.
  • A linear steady-state treatment of enzymatic chains. Critique of the Crossover Theorem and a general Procedure to identify Interaction Sites with an Effector. In: European Journal of Biochemistry. 42/1974, pp. 97-105.

Monographs and contributions to monographs

  • Metabolic Control Analysis: Principles and Application to the Erythrocyte. In: Control of Metabolic Processes. New York 1990, pp. 329-342
  • with Stefan Schuster : The Regulation of Cellular Systems. New York 1996.
  • Predicting the Structural Design of Metabolic Pathways: An Evolutionary Approach. In: Technological and Medical Implications of Metabolic Control Analysis. Dordrecht 2000, pp. 309-317.
  • Mathematical Modeling of the Wnt Pathway. In: Systems Biology: Definitions and Perspectives (= Topics in current Genetics. Volume 13). Berlin / New York 2005, pp. 259–275.

Stories and poems

  • Reinhart Heinrich (= poetry album . Volume 118). New life, Berlin 1977.
  • Beyond Babel. Neues Leben, Berlin 1987 (second edition 1989), ISBN 3-355-00360-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prof. Dr. Dr. hc. Reinhart Heinrich. In: Meeting reports of the Leibniz Society. 94/2008. Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin, p. 188, ISSN  0947-5850
  2. ↑ a b c Athel Cornish-Bowden: In Memoriam. Reinhart Heinrich (1946-2006). In: Journal of Theoretical Biology. 252/2008. Elsevier, pp. 377/378, ISSN  0022-5193
  3. ^ A b Marc W. Kirschner: Obituary: Reinhart Heinrich (1946–2006). Pioneer in Systems Biology. Obituary in: Nature . 444/2006. Nature Publishing Group, p. 700, ISSN  0028-0836
  4. ↑ a b c Tom A. Rapoport: In Memoriam. Reinhart Heinrich — An unassuming intellectual Giant. In: Journal of Theoretical Biology. 252/2008. Elsevier, pp. 388-390, ISSN  0022-5193
  5. ↑ Humboldt University Berlin - Theoretical Biophysics: Professor Reinhart Heinrich ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English; last accessed on October 11, 2010) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.hu-berlin.de
  6. ^ A b Thomas Höfer: In Remembrance: Reinhart Heinrich 1946–2006. In: PLoS Computational Biology. 3 (1) / 2007. Public Library of Science , pp. E18, ISSN  1553-734X
  7. ↑ Athel Cornish-Bowden: Reinhart Heinrich (1946-2006): An annotated Bibliography. In: Journal of Theoretical Biology. 252/2008. Elsevier, pp. 379-387, ISSN  0022-5193
  8. ↑ Gisela Jacobasch: Obituary Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Reinhart Heinrich, b. April 24, 1946, died October 23, 2006. In: Meeting reports of the Leibniz Society. 88/2007. Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin, pp. 183/184, ISSN  0947-5850
  9. ↑ New members of the Leibniz Society. In: Meeting reports of the Leibniz Society. 74/2004. Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin, pp. 37/38, ISSN  0947-5850
  10. ↑ European Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology - Reinhart Heinrich Doctoral Thesis Award (English; last accessed on October 11, 2010)
  11. ↑ ISGSB 2016

literature

Web links

Commons : Reinhart Heinrich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Heinrich, Reinhart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 2006
Place of death Berlin