Rudolf Rott

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Rudolf Rott (born May 23, 1926 in Stuttgart , † April 28, 2003 in Gießen ) was a German virologist.

Rott was the son of a civil engineer and went to school in Ellwangen and Rottweil . After two years of military service in World War II, imprisonment and two years in agriculture, he studied veterinary medicine at the University of Giessen , initially from 1950 , with his doctorate in 1955 on swine influenza with Elmar Roots . He then worked as an assistant at the Giessen Institute for Animal Disease Studies at Roots and in 1958 joined Werner Schäfer at the Max Planck Institute for Virus Research in Tübingen , where he dealt with the avian influenza virus, which is also one of the flu viruses. In 1964 he became a professor in Giessen (after his habilitation in 1963) and head of the newly founded institute for virology, which was the first in Germany. In 1994 he retired.

Rott published over 300 scientific papers. He dealt in particular with influenza viruses, for example the gene structure and genetic relationship of the influenza viruses and surface proteins of the influenza viruses (such as neuraminidase ). In the mid-1970s, he and his group were able to demonstrate the structure of virus RNA from eight segments that could be freely exchanged, which explains the high variability of the viruses. The studies at that time also showed that the pathogenicity of the viruses depended on many factors. He and his group in Gießen also researched the glycoproteins of the virus envelope and their role in penetrating the host cell. They were able to prove that the cleavage of the hemagglutinin of the virus envelope by the host's own enzymes was an important mechanism for the virus to be infectious. Rott and his group also demonstrated that the increase in this proteolytic activity on hemagglutinin by bacteria could contribute to the pathogenicity of the flu viruses. He demonstrated the proteolytic activation of surface glycoproteins in other viruses (such as Paramyxoviridae in Newcastle disease , Sendai virus infection ).

He also studied the Bornash disease virus , which causes chronic brain disease in horses. Rott and colleagues also demonstrated virulence in humans.

He received the Robert Koch Prize in 1987 and the Otto Warburg Medal in 1982 . In 1991 he received the Max Planck Research Award . He was an honorary member of the Society for Virology (1999) and an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin. He was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine (1963), the New York Academy of Sciences (1966) and the Leopoldina (1973), whose Cothenius Medal he received in 1999. In 1995/96 he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin .

Rott was married to Renate Kröll since 1956 and has a daughter Sabine, who is married to the former director of the Bernhard Nocht Institute Bernhard Fleischer .

Fonts

  • with Hans-Dieter Klenk : The molecular biology of influenza virus pathogenicity , Advances in Virus Research, Volume 34, 1987, p. 247

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rott, C. Scholtissek, W. Rohde, V. v. Hoyningen: On the origin of the human influenza virus Subtypes H2N2 and H3N2 , Virology, Volume 87, 1978, pp. 13-20. In it they demonstrated that H2N2, which replaced type H1N1 in the 1957 pandemic, arose from the exchange of several genes; in H3N2, which replaced H2N2 in the 1968 pandemic, but only the hemagglutinin gene was replaced by a gene from an animal virus.
  2. ↑ C. Scholtissek, E. Harms, W. Rohde, M. Orlich, R. Rott: Correlation between RNA fragments of fowl plague virus and their corresponding gene functions , Virology, Volume 74, 1976, pp. 332-344
  3. ↑ Scholtissek, Harms, Rohde, Orlich, Rott: Correlation of pathogenicity and gene constellation of Influenza A virus (fowl plague) , Part 1 (Exchange of single gene), Virology, Volume 81, 1977, pp. 74-80, Part 2 , Virology, Vol. 95, 1979, pp. 492-500
  4. ↑ H.-D. Klenk, R. Rott, M. Orlich, J. Blödorn: Activation of influenza A virus by trypsin treatment , Virology, Volume 68, 1975, pp. 426-439
  5. ↑ M. Tashiro, P. Ciborowski, H.-D. Klenk, G. Pulverer, R. Rott: Role of staphylococcal protease in the development of influenza pneumonia , Nature, Volume 325, 1987, pp. 536-537
  6. ^ Rott, Y. Nagai, H.-D. Klenk: Proteolytic cleavage of the viral glycoproteins and its significance for the virulence of Newcastle disease virus , Virology, Volume 72, 1976, pp. 494-508
  7. ↑ Rott, O. Narayan, S. Herzog, K. Frese, H. Scheefers: Behavioral disease in rats caused by immunopathological responses to persistent Borna virus in the brain , Science, Volume 220, 1983, pp. 1401-1403, Rott, S. Herzog, B. Fleischer, A. Winokur, J. Amsterdam, W. Dyson, H. Koprowski Detection of serum antibodies to Borna disease virus in patients with Psychiatric disorders , Science, Volume 228, 1985, p. 755
personal data
SURNAME Rott, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German virologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 2003
Place of death to water