Rudolf Signer
Rudolf Signer (born March 17, 1903 in Herisau , † December 1, 1990 in Gümligen ) was a Swiss chemist .
Signer was the son of the textile chemist Jakob Signer and Dorothea Agnes Scherrer. He attended the canton school in St. Gallen and from 1921 studied chemistry at the ETH Zurich to become a teacher. In 1927 he received his doctorate there under Hermann Staudinger . In 1926 he became an assistant at the University of Freiburg, where he completed his habilitation in 1930. In 1932/33 he was a Rockefeller Fellow in Uppsala and Manchester. In 1935 he became associate professor and in 1939 full professor for general and inorganic chemistry at the University of Bern . He was director of the chemical institute there and retired in 1972.
He dealt with macromolecular chemistry, especially in natural products. In 1938 he measured and described the DNA , whose thread-like structure he recognized. In 1950 he brought 15 g of exceptional pure DNA to London, where he gave it away to interested scientists, including Maurice Wilkins . The X-ray structure analyzes in Wilkins laboratory soon enabled James Watson and Francis Crick to elucidate the double helix structure of DNA. Remnants of the DNA that Signer obtained from the thymus of calves are today at King's College in London. Signer wrote over 250 scientific publications and was awarded the Lavoisier Medal .
swell
- Viktor Gorgé: Signer, Rudolf. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Signer's DNA . In Unipress , issue 119
- Signer's trip to London. How a Bernese man changed the world with his DNA samples , NZZ 23 November 2003
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Signer, Rudolf |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 17, 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Herisau |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 1, 1990 |
| Place of death | Gümligen |