Walter Löb

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Walter Löb (born May 7, 1872 Elberfeld (today a district of Wuppertal ), † February 3, 1916 Berlin ) was a German biochemist .

Education and activity

Walter Löb studied chemistry in Berlin and received his doctorate there in 1894. He then worked as an assistant at the electrochemical institute of the Technical University of Aachen, where he completed his habilitation in 1896 in electrochemistry. Between 1898 and 1906 he worked as a private lecturer in physical chemistry at Bonn University. He then became head of the chemical department at the Rudolf Virchow Hospital in Berlin.

The importance of Löb for the study of chemical evolution is controversially discussed. As early as 1913, Löb was producing the amino acid glycine from a derivative of formic acid dissolved in water using spark discharges as well as under UV light . Walter Löb, who died a few years after this attempt at the age of 44, had not explicitly linked his work with the question of the origin of life. It was forgotten in the following years and was only rediscovered in recent years. On the other hand, Stanley Miller , who published experiments in 1953 that came to similar results, achieved great importance .

Life

Walter Löb married Agnes Frank on August 7, 1900. Together they had four daughters (born between 1901 and 1906), two of whom were murdered in the Holocaust.

Publications (selection)

  • Walter Löb: Comments on intra-arterial therapy , Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift , 1912, 49: 1504.
  • Walter Löb: About the behavior of formamide under the effect of the silent discharge. A contribution to the question of nitrogen assimilation , reports of the German Chemical Society , 1913, 46, pp. 684-697.
  • Walter Löb: On the chemical theory of alcoholic fermentation , Zeitschrift für Elektrochemie , 1907, p. 511.
  • Walter Löb: New working methods of organic chemistry , reports of the German Chemical Society , 1896, 29, pp. 1390-1392.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ University of Bonn: History ( online , accessed November 9, 2011)
  2. ↑ Wolfram Fischer: Exodus of Sciences from Berlin, p. 306.
  3. ↑ Marc-Denis Weitze: The origin of life - a unique event? , NZZ Online, March 20, 2009. ( online-pdf ( memento of the original from August 21, 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 them Note. , Accessed on November 9, 2011) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.synbio.at
  4. ↑ Marcus Anhäuser: Baumeister des Lebens , Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wissenschaft, May 13, 2003 ( online ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2016 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 instructions and then remove this note. , accessed on November 9, 2011) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.redaktion-wissen.de
  5. ↑ Willi Brand: How nitrogen came to life , MaxPlanckForschung , 2, 2004. ( online ( Memento of the original from May 3, 2009 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 instructions and then remove this note. , accessed on November 11, 2011) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.weltderphysik.de
personal data
SURNAME Löb, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Loeb, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1916
Place of death Berlin