Robert Schwyzer

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Robert Schwyzer [ʃviːt͡sər] (born December 8, 1920 in Zurich ; † September 29, 2015 ) was a Swiss biochemist and molecular biologist .

Life

Schwyzer's father of the same name was the chief physician at the district hospital in Bülach , his mother Rosa Schätzle a nurse. He attended school in Minneapolis and graduated from Zurich. Schwyzer studied chemistry at the University of Zurich with his doctorate in 1947 under the Nobel Prize winner Paul Karrer on vitamins. After his habilitation in 1951 at the University of Zurich, he worked for Ciba AG in Basel, where he set up a group for peptide chemistry. At the same time, however, he remained a private lecturer at the University of Zurich during his time at Ciba AG (from 1960 titular professor). When he was offered the management of a department at Ciba, he declined because, in his own words, he did not trust himself to do so, and returned to the university. From 1960 to 1963, however, he was Vice Director for Pharmaceutical Research at Ciba. From 1963 he was a full professor of microbiology at the ETH Zurich , where he built up the then still young molecular biology. In 1988 he retired.

In 1958 he was on a research stay at the University of California and in 1964 visiting professor at the University of Washington . At Ciba he succeeded in the synthesis of angiotensin (in the laboratory in 1957, marketed by Ciba in 1959 as hypertensin) and the synthesis of the pituitary hormone ACTH (partial synthesis 1960, total synthesis 1963, marketed by Ciba in 1963 as synacthen) . He was also involved in the synthesis of gramicidin S. He then worked at the ETH Zurich on structure-function relationships of biologically active substances such as polypeptide hormones and hormone-receptor interactions. He resisted the growing urge in the 1970s to focus on molecular genetics and genetic engineering instead of the biological function of proteins.

Schwyzer has produced over 300 scientific publications.

In 1964 he received the Otto Naegeli Prize and in 1969 he gave the Paul Karrer Lecture . In 1968 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . Nobel Prize winner Kurt Wüthrich is one of his former employees at the institute .

He was married to Rosa Naegeli from 1948 and had three children. The Indo-Europeanist Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler was a great-great- uncle , the philologist Eduard Schwyzer an uncle and the Graecist Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer a cousin of Robert Schwyzer.

Fonts

  • I. Vitamins and Antivitamins. II. Sobic acid derivatives substituted in the epsilon position. Dissertation University of Zurich 1948, OCLC 315756255 .
  • Research into the living: a molecular biological observation for laypeople , Beer, Zurich 1980, OCLC 610885612 , (= New Year's paper for the best of the orphanage in Zurich , 143rd issue = No. 201).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary notice with curriculum vitae , ETH Zurich, Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 6, 2015.
  2. ↑ As director of the Chemical Institute, Karrer had forbidden him to do peptide research at the university.
  3. ↑ Interview with Michael Bürgi, Neues Bülacher Tagblatt, February 22, 2006
personal data
SURNAME Schwyzer, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss biochemist and molecular biologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH 29th September 2015