Willi Heine

Willi Erwin Kurt Heine (born December 25, 1929 in Wittenberge ; † March 19, 2017 ) was a German pediatrician and university professor .

Live and act

After childhood, school and A-levels in Wittenberge, Heine studied at the Medical Faculty of the University of Rostock from 1949 , passed the state examination there in 1954 and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD.

From 1956 to 1958 he was a research assistant at the Institute for Biochemistry at the Martin Luther University in Halle / Saale, from 1958 at the University Children's Hospital in Rostock, where he completed his further training in paediatrics until 1961 . After his habilitation on the subject of animal experiments on the teratogenic effects of phthalylglutamic acid imide (Contergan) and its breakdown products , he was appointed lecturer in 1967, ten years after his habilitation as associate professor at the University Children's Clinic in Rostock.

After the political breakdown of the ties to research groups and companies in the Federal Republic of Germany that had been established before 1961, Willi Heine developed an extensive range of infusion solutions, which was initially manufactured in the central pharmacy of the University Hospital in Rostock and later incorporated into the production of VEB Berlin Chemie. The parenteral nutrient solutions Alvesin, Infesol, multi-electrolyte solutions and chemically defined foods were developed and tested in this way in Rostock.

Looking for non-invasive examination methods , Willi Heine took up the mass spectrometric method with 15N-labeled tracer substances developed by Rudolf Schönheimer in 1940 in 1978 . A mass spectrometric research laboratory was set up at the University Children's Clinic, which, in combination with a microecological work area, quickly became known worldwide through publications in the field of protein metabolism in infancy.

Due to his creative work and international relations, Willi Heine received invitations to give lectures, among others in Providence, Chapel Hill, St. Louis, Iowa, Evansville and Houston, which he caused after the personal political difficulties caused by the so-called Directorate for Foreign Relations , after protests up to the threat of submitting an application to leave the country, could finally be realized in 1984 and 1988.

In 1988 Willi Heine was offered a visiting professorship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston / Texas. In the turmoil of the impending demise of the GDR, Willi Heine and his wife received permission to travel to the USA in October 1988. He spent a year at the Children's Nutrition Research Center in Houston, developing a later patented method for measuring orozecal transit times with 13C-labeled glycosylurides and studying the representation of alpha-lactalbumin from whey protein - a key protein for enhancing infant formula.

After the political change in the former GDR in 1989, Willi Heine returned to his old place of work at the University of Rostock in September 1990, where he received a C4 professorship and was appointed full university professor with a chair in 1993.

From 1974 until his retirement in 1996, Willi Heine took over the management of the University Children's and Youth Clinic in Rostock. Until recently, Willi Heine was active in various scientific institutions and committees. Until 1994 he was a member of the Committee on Nutrition of the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition (ESPGAN); from 1995 to 1997 he was chairman of the nutrition commission of the German Society for Pediatrics. V.

Awards

• Maxim Zetkin Prize of the German Society for Pediatrics of the GDR 1980
• Kofranyi Medal of the German Academy for Nutritional Medicine 1998
• Paracelsus Medal of the German Medical Association (1999)

Web links

• Laudation for the 1999 Paracelsus Medal . Federal Medical Association 1999
• Entry on Willi Heine in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary notice. In: North German Latest News. March 25, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2017 .