Johann Deisenhofer received the 1988 chemistry award with fellow German biochemists Hartmut Michel and Robert Huber for unravelling how a membrane-bound protein active in photosynthesis is built up. At the time the trio all worked at the Max-Planck Institute in Munich.
Plants use the energy of light to build organic matter by a process called photosynthesis, creating the most basic foodstuff in the world’s food chain – vegetation. Furthermore, the plants produce oxygen, which allows bodies to burn the organic matter. Photosynthesis, says the offi cial Nobel review of the 1988 chemistry award, is “the most important chemical reaction on earth”. The conversion of energy in photosynthesis and cellular respiration takes place through the transport of electrons via a series of proteins, which are bound in special membranes. These proteins are difficult to obtain in a crystalline form, but in 1981 Michel succeeded, allowing him, with Deisenhofer and Huber, to study their structure. A simpler form of photosynthesis, which leads to the formation of organic material without liberation of oxygen, is found in certain bacteria.
Deisenhofer was born in Zusamaltheim, Bavaria, in 1943, and grew up on the family farm which, traditionally, he was to inherit, but he had no interest in farming. Instead, after his basic local education, he was sent to a series of schools from 1956, culminating at the Holbein Gymnasium in Augsburg. In 1965, after 18 months of military service, he entered the Technische Universität, München, to study physics. Having concentrated on solid state physics, Deisenhofer switched to biophysics for his PhD, joining Robert Huber’s new group at the Max-Planck-Institut in 1971, initially in Munich and moving in 1972 to Martinsried.
Deisenhofer worked with Wolfgang Steigemann on the crystallographic refinement of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor, and wrote a popular paper in 1975. He gained his PhD in 1974 and Huber offered him a postdoctoral position, which became permanent in 1976. In 1982, Hartmut Michel reported his success with the crystallisation of the photosynthetic reaction center from Rhodopseudomonas viridis. Deisenhofer joined the project to determine the three-dimensional structure of this molecule. Their success brought a flurry of offers, and Deisenhofer accepted a post as professor of biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in March 1988, and Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. At Howard Hughes he met Kirsten Fischer Lindahl, whom he married in 1989.
This text and the picture of the Nobel Laureate were taken from the book: "NOBELS. Nobel Laureates photographed by Peter Badge" (WILEY-VCH, 2008).
Picture: © Peter Badge/ Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance |