Werner Karl Maas

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Werner Karl Maas (born April 27, 1921 in Kaiserslautern ; † November 19, 2019 in Hastings-on-Hudson ) was a German-American microbiologist , pharmacologist , genetic researcher and university professor .

Life

Werner Maas was a student at the Albert Schweitzer High School in Kaiserslautern. His father was the physician Albert Maas (1888–1936). At the end of 1936 his parents emigrated with him to the USA , in 1945 he was naturalized as an American. He studied biology (Bachelor of Arts, 1943) at Harvard University and Zoology (Doctor of Philosophy 1948) at Colombia University in New York.

From 1946 to 1948 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and from 1948 to 1954 a member of the tuberculosis research laboratory of the US Public Health Service at Cornell University. From 1954 to 1957 he was Associate Professor of Pharmacology and from 1957 to 1963 Assistant Professor of Microbiology, then from 1963 to his retirement in 1994 Professor of Microbiology and 1974 to 1981 Head of the Basic Medical Science Department at the Medical School of New York University . In the early 1980s he contacted the Technical University of Kaiserslautern (TU) and took on a teaching position. In 1991 the Technical University of Kaiserslautern awarded him an honorary doctorate from the Department of Biology as the first scientist ever.

Werner Maas excelled scientifically in the field of gene expression and plasmid replication. He investigated the regulation of gene expression in bacteria, in particular the regulation of arginine biosynthesis in Escherichia coli . In addition, he and his team studied the initiation of plasmid replication, the regulation of enterotoxin production and the properties of a novel retroelement in Escherichia coli that uses reverse transcriptase to produce molecules. These molecules consisted of single-stranded DNA bound to RNA molecules and found to be mutagenic.

In addition to more than a hundred articles in scientific journals, Maas published a German-language biography of his father in Speyer in 2003 , an English-language edition of which appeared in 2004, and an autobiography under the title The Spiral of my Life in 2018 .

He died on November 19, 2019 in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Fonts

  • Gene Expression and its Regulation: Laying the Foundation for Molecular Biology . XLibris, 2013, ISBN 978-1-72061-031-1 .
  • My Father's Life 1888–1936. A picture of Jewish life in the Rhine Palatinate between emancipation, integration, expulsion and annihilation. Evangelischer Presseverlag Pfalz, Speyer 2003, ISBN 3-925536-87-6 .
  • My Father's Life: 1888-1936. A Picture of Jewish life in the Rhenish Palatinate through Emancipation, Integration, Expulsion, and Annihilation. Evangelischer Presseverlag, Speyer 2004, ISBN 3-925536-98-2 .
  • The spiral of my life. From Provincial Germany to Multicultural USA and the New International World of Molecular Genetics, 1921 to 2016. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018, ISBN 978-1-72061-031-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Obituary notice. In: Pfälzische Volkszeitung. November 23, 2019, accessed December 1, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Maas, Werner Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American microbiologist, pharmacologist, genetic researcher and university professor of German origin
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaiserslautern
DATE OF DEATH 19th November 2019
Place of death Hastings-on-Hudson