Werner Thies

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Werner Thies (born August 16, 1933 in Frankfurt (Oder) ; † January 25, 2008 in Göttingen ) was a German biochemist , professor of phytochemistry and plant breeding and forest owner.

Life

Youth and Studies

Werner Thies was born the son of a chief staff officer. He first attended elementary and high school in his hometown, after the end of the war schools in Halle (Saale) and Hildesheim. In 1952 he obtained the secondary school leaving certificate. This was followed by training as an industrial clerk; At the same time he attended the evening grammar school in Hildesheim and passed the final examination there in 1955. He then studied biology, chemistry and physics at the University of Göttingen from 1955 to 1961. He joined the fraternity Hannovera Göttingen .

Scientific training

He spent the winter semester 1957/58 in Munich. There, he applied - still a student - with his fraternity brother Peter Boeger successful in Nobel laureate Adolf Butenandt to spend a year as a fellow of the German Research Foundation at the National Research Center in Cairo as part of the research project to combat a cotton pest. In 1961 he passed the state examination for teaching at secondary schools. He then worked on his dissertation, and around 1964 with the thesis "Investigations on the phenylpropane metabolism in tissue cultures of Nicotiana tabacum var. Samsum" to become a Dr. rer. nat. to get a doctorate.

University and research

For half a year he worked as a teacher for natural science subjects at the Max Planck Gymnasium in Göttingen before becoming a scientific assistant at the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding at the University of Göttingen . In 1974 he was appointed senior assistant. In 1977 he completed his habilitation (habilitation thesis: Questions of quality analysis in oil plant breeding ). In 1983 he was appointed associate professor.

Werner Thies took the lead in the successful project of the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding, headed by Professor Gerhard Röbbelen , to breed seeds for a winter rape variety whose fruits are largely free of erucic acid and glucobrassicin and therefore can be used for the production of edible oil. He continuously developed refined methods for faster and more accurate measurement of larger quantities of semen samples obtained in the meantime, without which the project would not have been brought to a conclusion so quickly.

Economical meaning

Only small traces of the nutritionally questionable erucic acid previously contained are now found. At the same time, since the press cake remaining after the oil extraction contains little bitter substances, it is processed and used as an admixture to very high-quality animal feed. There are no unusable residues left in the rapeseed processing today.

literature

  • Gerhard Röbbelen: Biographical Lexicon for the History of Plant Breeding , 3rd part, published as volume 66 of the lectures for plant breeding, Göttingen: 2004, p. 200 ff., Contains references to the life and professional activities of Werner Thies as well as to his book contributions and important publications .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henning Tegtmeyer : Directory of members of the fraternity Hannovera Göttingen, 1848–1998 , Düsseldorf 1998, page 104
  2. ↑ Georg-August-Universität Göttingen: Plant Breeding Department
  3. ↑ ufop.de: Wegbereiter Rapszüchtung ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ufop.de
personal data
SURNAME Thies, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biochemist, professor of phytochemistry and plant breeding and forest owner
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH January 25, 2008
Place of death Goettingen