“Photosynthesis is the most important chemical reaction on earth”. So begins the official Nobel press release of the 1988 chemistry award, which was shared by three scientists for their determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre.
Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel, from Max-Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry in Martinsried and MPI for Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main, and their fellow German Johann Deisenhofer, based in the US, received the award for unravelling the full details of how a membrane-bound protein is built up. Most schoolchildren know that plants use the energy of light to build organic substances by a process called photosynthesis, but don’t always appreciate that this is, in effect, how the most basic foodstuff in the world’s food chain is created. The energy for life processes is then produced largely in the combustion of the organic substances by the oxygen of the air in cellular respiration – put simply, oxygen in the air allows bodies to burn calories. The oxygen is produced by plants by photosynthesis.
The conversion of energy in photosynthesis and cellular respiration takes place through 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 1982 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.
Robert Huber was born in Munich in 1937 and had a younger sister. He entered the Humanistische Karls-Gymnasium in 1947 with a sketchy education due to the war, but was fascinated by chemistry and read all the textbooks he could get. In 1956 he moved to the Technische Hochschule in Munich, where he gained a Chemistry degree in 1960 and studied crystallography under W Hoppe gaining his PhD in 1963. In 1971 he became the director at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry, but remained associated with the Technische Universität in Munich, where he became professor in 1976. At the Max- Planck Institute, Huber’s team studied proteins, often in collaboration with scientists and industry elsewhere with focus on proteins of medical interest and use in plant protection. They discovered and documented the role of flexibility for protein structure and function. They also developed methods that are used in many laboratories in the world today, to quantify the protein’s structure through crystallography. He co-founded two Biotech companies located in Martinsried, PROTEROS offering services in Structural Biology and SUPPREMOL developing a new therapeutic protein modulating the immune response in auto immune diseases. He serves as scientific advisor in other companies and as editor of the Journal of Molecular Biology.
After his retirement in 2005 he has taken up posts at Cardiff University and at the Universität Duisburg-Essen and will spearhead the development of Structural Biology at the university on a part time basis. Huber has four children with his former wife Christa.
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 |
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