Hans Fischer (German pronunciation:[ˈhansˈfɪʃɐ]ⓘ; 27 July 1881 – 31 March 1945) was a Germanorganic chemist and the recipient of the 1930Nobel Prize for Chemistry "for his researches into the constitution ofhaemin andchlorophyll and especially for his synthesis of haemin."[1]
Hans Fischer | |
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![]() Fischer in 1930 | |
Born | (1881-07-27)27 July 1881 |
Died | 31 March 1945(1945-03-31) (aged 63) |
Alma mater | University of Lausanne University of Marburg |
Known for | Chlorophyll Haemin Fischer–Fink synthesis |
Awards | Liebig Medal(1929) Nobel Prize for Chemistry(1930) Davy Medal(1937) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Chemistry |
Institutions | University of Innsbruck, University of Vienna, Technical University of Munich |
Doctoral advisor | Theodor Zincke[citation needed] |
Other academic advisors | Emil Fischer |
Doctoral students | |
Biography
editEarly years
editFischer was born on July 27, 1881, inHöchst, now a city district ofFrankfurt located in Germany. His parents were Dr. Eugen Fischer, Director of the firm ofKalle & Co. [de],Wiesbaden, and Privatdozent at the Technical High School,Stuttgart, and Anna Herdegen was his mother. He went to a primary school in Stuttgart, and later to the "HumanistischesGymnasium" inWiesbaden, matriculating in 1899. He readchemistry andmedicine, first at theUniversity of Lausanne and then atMarburg. He graduated in 1904 obtaining his chemistry degree, 2 years later in 1906 he licensed for medicine and in 1908 he qualified for hisM.D.[2] which he applied to the University of Munich.
Career
editHe worked first at a Medical Clinic inMunich and then at theFirst Berlin Chemical Institute underEmil Fischer. He returned to Munich in 1911 and qualified as lecturer on internal medicine one year later. In 1913, he became a lecturer inphysiology at the Physiological Institute in Munich. In 1916, he became Professor of Medical Chemistry at theUniversity of Innsbruck and from there he went to theUniversity of Vienna in 1918.
From 1921 until his death, he held the position of Professor of Organic Chemistry at theTechnical University of Munich.
Fischer's scientific work was mostly concerned with the investigation of the pigments inblood,bile, and alsochlorophyll inleaves, as well as with the chemistry ofpyrrole from which these pigments are derived. Of special importance was his synthesis ofbilirubin andhaemin. He received many honors for this work, and received theNobel Prize in 1930. Thelunar craterFischer was named after him (andHermann Emil Fischer) in 1976. Hans Fisher had mapped the composition of a hem group. In 1929 Fischer succeeded in producing the substance and proving that its ring has a central atom of iron, as he also continued studying other pigmented substances of a biological importance of biochemistry such as chlorophyll, the color that plays part in a plants photosynthesis. Fischer also unraveled the bile pigments biliverdin (which causes the yellowish color characteristic of bruised skin) and bilirubin (which yellows skin in jaundice cases), and synthesized them in 1942 and 1944, successively. He conducted microanalyses of more than 60,000 chemical substance, and had won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1930. The person that sparked Fischer's interest was von Muller, his former professor and supervisor whom interests were in pyrrole pigments by inviting Fischer to work with him at the well-known Second Medical Clinic in Munich in 1910. Under Muller, he began to examine the composition of the bile pigment bilirubin, something he would continue to be engaged in during the decades that followed. Fischer's succession also came with difficulty's as many of his experiments seemed to have failed but with time Fischer was able to perfect his acknowledgement with his failed attempts.
Personal life
editFischer married Wiltrud Haufe around his 50's in the year 1935. Fischer was a man who was dedicated almost "exclusively" to his work. He continued his scientific research during Germany's Nazi era, and committed suicide on Easter Sunday in 1945, after his laboratory and life's work had been destroyed by the bombing in the last days of World War II.
Honours
edit- Fellow of theAcademy of Sciences Leopoldina (1919)
- Privy Councillor (1925)
- Liebig Memorial Medal (1929)
- Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1930)
- Honorary doctorate,Harvard University (1936)
- Davy Medal of theRoyal Society of London (1937)
Literature
edit- Heinrich Wieland (1950),"Hans Fischer und Otto Hönigschmid zum Gedächtniss",Angewandte Chemie,62 (1):1–4,Bibcode:1950AngCh..62....1W,doi:10.1002/ange.19500620102.
- Bickel, M H (2001), "[Henry E. Sigerist and Hans Fischer as pioneers of a medical history institute in Zurich]",Gesnerus, vol. 58, no. 3–4, pp. 215–9,PMID 11810971
- Stern, A J (1973), "Hans Fischer (1881–1945)",Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., vol. 206, no. 1, pp. 752–61,Bibcode:1973NYASA.206..752S,doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1973.tb43252.x,PMID 4584221,S2CID 40633114
- Watson, C J (1965), "Reminiscences of Hans Fischer and his laboratory",Perspect. Biol. Med., vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 419–35,doi:10.1353/pbm.1965.0052,PMID 5323649,S2CID 32016198
- Kämmerer, H (1961), "Hans Fischer (1881–1945). A reminiscence on the 80th anniversary of his birth",Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift (1950), vol. 103 (published Nov 3, 1961), pp. 2164–6,PMID 14036988
References
edit- ^"The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1930". nobelprize.org.
- ^Hans Fischer on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1930On Haemin and the Relationships between Haemin and Chlorophyll
External links
edit- Newspaper clippings about Hans Fischer in the20th Century Press Archives of theZBW
- Hans Fischer on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1930