Johann Deisenhofer
(Zusamaltheim, 1943) German biochemist.The investigations carried out together with his colleagues Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel led him to discover the structure of the protein that acts as the photochemical center of the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas viridis , which led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1988.
The first-born of a family of farmers, he began his primary studies at the school in his hometown, in the post-war period.Although his parents' wish was for him to continue the family tradition, his keen interest in furthering his academic training led them to make the difficult decision to send him to Donanwoerth, where he began his higher education in 1956.Four years later he moved to Augsburg to enter the Holbein Institute, where he finished his pre-university studies.
Johann Deisenhofer
His brilliant qualifications allowed him to obtain a scholarship that assured him the financing of his university career, without it being a burden on his parents.In 1965, after completing his military service, he began his studies in physics at the Technical University of Munich, attracted by the impact that modern physics was having on the study of astronomy and by the fact that Rudolf Mössbauer had just accepted a position as professor of said institution.He realized that this discipline disappointed his expectations, which caused him to turn his interests towards solid state physics.
During his university stage he had the opportunity to collaborate with Klaus Dransfeld in his laboratory, under the supervision of Karl Friedrich Renk.His work was successful and the conclusions they obtained were published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters , in 1971.In June of this same year he obtained his bachelor's degree and immediately entered the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, driven by the interest that Dransfeld had instilled in him in this discipline.
His first work, on the inhibition of bovine pancreatic trypsin, was carried out together with Wolfwang Steigemann, one of the doctoral students of the then director of the institute, Robert Huber.When he completed his doctorate in 1974, Huber offered him a position as a researcher.His task consisted of unraveling the three-dimensional structure of various biomolecules, using the computer programs he had developed for this.
In 1982, Hartmut Michel explained, in a seminar organized by the Max Planck Institute, that it had succeeded in crystallizing the main protein in which photosynthesis took place in Rhodopseudomonas viridis .Huber and Deisenhofer were impressed and asked Michel the possibility of working as a team to elucidate the three-dimensional structure of this molecule, by means of X-ray diffraction.The work was not easy since, until 1985, they did not manage to complete the structure of the molecule, and they still had another two years to refine the resolution model.This work earned them the unanimous recognition of the scientific community.
The success of his studies allowed Deisenhofer to obtain sufficient financial support to form his own research team, as well as the possibility of moving to the United States, where, since 1988, he was a professor of biochemistry at the Center Physician at the University of Southwest Texas, located in Dallas, and Researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The same year he moved to the United States, he was awarded, along with his colleagues Huber and Michel, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.In addition to this award, the most important in the world scientific panorama, he had previously received the Biochemistry Prize of the American Chemical Society, in 1986, and the Otto Bayer Prize, in 1988.Deisenhofer has also been distinguished with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany and is a member of the European Academy and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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