Werner Schäfer (veterinarian)

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Werner Schäfer (born March 9, 1912 in Herne-Wanne , Westphalia , † April 25, 2000 in Tübingen ) was a German veterinarian and virologist who founded a school for virology in Tübingen in the post-war years.

Life

Schäfer graduated from high school in Korbach in 1931 and then studied veterinary medicine at the University of Gießen . In 1938 he received his doctorate from Hugo Keller (on the concentration of hydrogen ions in various organs in cattle). He became an assistant at the Institute for Veterinary Hygiene and Animal Diseases with Karl Beller and began to turn to virology. At the beginning of the Second World War he was on a research trip to East Africa and was interned there. After an exchange of prisoners, he was a veterinary officer on the Eastern Front and later at the Reich Research Institute Insel Riems . After the war, he first worked as a resident veterinarian in Usseln before Adolf Butenandt brought him to the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Tübingen as head of the virology department . From 1954 onwards, a Max Planck Institute for Virus Research was established in Tübingen (founded by Gerhard Schramm and Hans Friedrich-Freksa [1906–1973]), where Schäfer stayed for the rest of his career.

Schäfer first examined influenza viruses using the example of avian influenza, which he discovered to be related to the influenza A virus. From the mid-1960s onwards, he turned to retroviruses , which at the time were known to cause cancer ( leukemia ), and research into which began with the emergence of AIDS in the 1980s.

Prizes and awards

In 1991 he received the Robert Koch Medal , in 1957 the Carus Medal , in 1978 the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize , in 1972 the Aronson Prize and in 1962 the Emil von Behring Prize . He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (1959) and a member of the Leopoldina (1969). He was an honorary doctor of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (1972), honorary member of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology and the Society for Virology.

Rudolf Rott is one of his students .

literature

  • Werner Schäfer . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 2000 ( online - obituary).
  • Peter Hausen: Werner Schäfer: 9.3.1913–24.4.2000 (wrong year of birth given, obituary for Schäfer), in: Yearbook of the Max Planck Society 2001, Munich 2004, page 879f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Simm: Work hard and think scientifically. Award ceremony report. In: DIE WELT , November 5, 1991 .
personal data
SURNAME Schäfer, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German virologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Herne tub
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 2000
Place of death Tübingen