Walter Josef Lorenz

Walter Josef Lorenz (born March 8, 1932 in Mährisch-Ostrau - Witkowitz ) is a German biophysicist and professor emeritus for nuclear medicine and biophysics at the University of Heidelberg .

Career

Lorenz spent his youth in Freiberg , where his father, Robert Lorenz from Nesselsdorf , was chief railroad master of the Stauding-Stramberg-Wernsdorf railway company, his mother Mathilde, nee. Liss, came from Engelswald . The Lorenz family came to Heidelberg in 1946 as the Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia , where Walter Lorenz studied physics at the University of Heidelberg after graduating from high school in 1952 .

As a graduate and doctoral student, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPI) from 1956 to 1959 under the supervision of Walther Bothe , Wolfgang Gentner and Ulrich Schmidt-Rohr . In 1961 he received his doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Heidelberg; 1967 the habilitation (Dr. habil.) At the Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg with the thesis "The importance of a nuclear reactor for medical research and clinical practice"; 1968 followed the Venia legendi of the medical faculty of the University of Heidelberg for the field of "nuclear medicine, especially biophysics"; In 1973 he was appointed professor at Heidelberg University. From 1961 to 1963 he was a research assistant, group leader and deputy cyclotron operations manager at the MPI for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg. From 1963 to 1964 he was chief physicist in the nuclear medicine department of the University Radiation Clinic (Cerny Hospital) in Heidelberg. In addition to his professional activity, he completed a pre-clinical study of medicine at the University of Heidelberg from 1962 to 1964 . From 1964 to March 31, 1997 he was head of the department for biophysics and medical radiation physics at the Institute for Nuclear Medicine (since 1987: Institute for Radiology and Pathophysiology ; since 1992: Research focus on radiological diagnostics and therapy) at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg.

He was retired on February 28, 1998. Since then, he and his wife Dr. med. Dorothea Lorenz, specialist in internal medicine, is increasingly doing voluntary work in general health advice and advising patients with cancer.

Scientific work

Under his leadership, the first research reactor in the field of medical-biological research was put into operation at the DKFZ for patient -related research. In 1970, a cyclotron built by AEG was installed in the new building of the DKFZ and put into operation in 1972. Lorenz was significantly involved in the development of quantitative functional scintigraphy , which went hand in hand with the introduction of data processing . Around 1968 the development of a positron scintillation camera, a predecessor of today's positron emission tomograph, also fell . His openness to new developments was also reflected in the fact that in 1972 the research and development of ultrasound for tumor diagnostics was included in the program of the Heidelberg Institute for Nuclear Medicine, which he directed.

In 1976, the DKFZ installed and commissioned the first full-body computer tomograph (CT) in the Federal Republic of Germany. But not only in the diagnostic area, Walter Lorenz relied on new methods, such as later on magnetic resonance tomography (1985) and positron emission tomography (1986), but also in the therapeutic sector he pushed ahead research projects such as For example, the use of fast neutrons in tumor therapy (1976) and the development of stereotactic convergence radiation with a linear accelerator (1979), which he proposed and which was later developed for clinical application by his colleagues. Lorenz trained a total of 170 diploma and doctoral students, and he led seven of his research assistants to habilitation .

Honors

• Badge of Honor Alma mater Lipsiensis of the University of Leipzig 1989
• Georg von Hevesy Rudolf Schönheimer Medal 1992 for nuclear medicine, clinical physicist and radiochemist of the new federal states
• Sudeten German Culture Prize 2002 for science from the Free State of Bavaria and the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft
• Richard Glocker Medal 2007 of the German Society for Medical Physics
• Great Sudeten German Culture Prize 2007 of the Free State of Bavaria and the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft
• Elected full member of the natural science class of the Sudeten German Academy of Sciences and Arts in Munich (2007)

literature

Lorenz's list of publications includes 216 journal articles, 4 university publications and 513 publications of books and book articles. These include the following monographs:

• Lorenz, Walter J .: Production of scintillation crystals from anthracene and investigations into their relative light output. MPI for Physics, Heidelberg (1968)
• Lorenz, Walter J .: Investigations on a gas scintillation counter. Diploma thesis, natural science Faculty of Heidelberg University (1959)
• Lorenz, Walter J .: Elastic scattering of deuterons at 11.8 MeV. Dissertation, natural science Faculty of Heidelberg University (1961)
• Lorenz, Walter J .: The importance of a nuclear reactor for medical research and clinical practice. Habil.-Schr., Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg (1968)
• Lorenz, Walter J .: The importance of a nuclear reactor for medical research and clinical practice. Hüthig, Heidelberg (1970)
• Lorenz, Walter J .: Medical Physics. 2 volumes, Hüthig, Heidelberg (1977)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Richard Glocker Medal

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Josef Lorenz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Research reports by Walter J. Lorenz at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)