Researches on Plant Pigments especially Chlorophyll Richard Martin Willstätter (1915)
Richard Martin
Willstätter
Born: 13 August
1872, Germany
Died: 3 August
1942, Locarno, Switzerland
Affiliation at the time
of the award: Munich University, Munich, Germany
Prize motivation:
for his researches on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll
Field: Organic
chemistry, natural products chemistry
Biography
Richard Martin Willstätter was born in Karlsruhe in Baden on August 13, 1872,
and went to school first in his home town and then, when his parents moved
house, at the Technical School in Nuremberg. When he was 18 he went to the
University of Munich where he studied Science, entered the Department of
Chemistry under Baeyer and stayed there for the following fifteen years, first as a student, from
1896 as a lecturer - pursuing his scientific work independently - until in
early 1902 he became J. Thiele's successor as Extraordinary Professor.
As a young man he studied principally the structure and synthesis of plant
alkaloids such as atropine and cocaine. In this, as in his later work on
quinone and quinone type compounds which are the basis of many dyestuffs, he
sought to acquire skill in chemical methods in order to prepare himself for the
extensive and more difficult work of investigating plant and animal pigments.
For this undertaking the working facilities which the Munich laboratory
afforded him were too limited and he was glad to accept the first offer of a Professorial
Chair which he received in the summer of 1905. It was thus that he came to
Zurich to the Federal Technical College.
These seven years in Switzerland were for him the best and most
significant. But while research and teaching brought him great satisfaction, at
the same time he suffered personal misfortune and soon became lonely. He
enjoyed his work in Zurich so much that he did not think of those years as a
waiting period until he was called back to Germany in 1912. For the Jubilee of
the University of Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm had established a Society for the
Promotion of Scientific Knowledge and this body had founded an Institute of
Chemistry in Berlin/Dahlem. He was offered a Research Laboratory here in
conjunction with an honorary professorship at the University of Berlin.
In the two short years before the outbreak of the first World War he was
able with a team of collaborators to round off his investigations into
chlorophyll and, in connexion with that, to complete some work on haemoglobin
and, in rapid succession, to carry out his studies of anthocyanes, the
colouring matter of flowers and fruits. These investigations into plant
pigments, especially the work on chlorophyll, were honoured by the award of the
Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1915), just at the time when he had decided to
accept a call to the University of Munich and again, as successor to his old
teacher Adolf von Baeyer, take an active part in university teaching; for, as
things were then, the even tenour of scientific life at Dahlem was gone.
In the period that followed Willstätter continued on lines of fundamental
importance, and his brilliant and fruitful work is regarded today as a
pioneering achievement. The investigations into photosynthesis and into the
nature and activity of the enzymes were precursory of modern Biochemistry. At
that time the method so far developed of concentrating enzymes through
adsorption did not make it possible to attain to the crystallized enzymes. In
this connexion, Willstätter carried out important studies of adsorbents, metal
hydroxides, hydrogels and silicic acids. In addition he was quick to give his
attention also to problems of theoretical chemistry. Thus he achieved the first
synthesis of cyclo-octatetraene, and went on to compare it with benzene; so
also he set up experiments to produce cyclobutadiene.
Willstätter's career came to a tragic end when, as a gesture against
increasing antisemitism, he announced his retirement in 1924. Expressions of
confidence by the Faculty, by his students and by the Minister failed to shake
the fifty-three year old scientist in his decision to resign. He lived on in
retirement in Munich, maintaining contact only with those of his pupils who
remained in the Institute and with his successor, Heinrich Wieland, whom he had nominated. Dazzling offers both at home and abroad were alike
rejected by him. In 1938 he fled from the Gestapo with the help of his pupil A.
Stoll and managed to emigrate to Switzerland, losing all but a meagre part of
his belongings.
Willstätter was married to Sophie Leser, the daughter of a Heidelberg
University professor. They had one son, Ludwig, and one daughter, Ida
Margarete. The old man passed the last three years of his life in Muroalto near
Locarno until he died on 3rd August, 1942, of a heart attack.In 1956 a memorial
to Richard Willstätter was unveiled in Muroalto.
Source :http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1915/willstatter.html
(diakses tanggal 5 Mei 2011 pukul 20.22 WIB)
0 Response to "Researches on Plant Pigments especially Chlorophyll Richard Martin Willstätter (1915)"
Posting Komentar