Hartmut Michel
Hartmut Michel ( born July 18, 1948 in Ludwigsburg ) is a German biochemist. He received 1988 together with Johann Deisenhofer and Robert Huber received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research into the three-dimensional molecular structure of the photosynthetic reaction center in the purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas viridis.
Biography
Hartmut Michel was born in Ludwigsburg in Baden- Württemberg in 1948. He studied biochemistry at the University of Tübingen in 1977 and his doctorate at the University of Würzburg. In 1986 his Habilitation at the University of Munich. Since 1987 he is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main, where Head of the Department of Molecular Membrane Biology.
Between February 2004 and April 2010, Michel was also a member of the appointed by the Federal President Science Council, which advises the federal government and the states on issues of development of higher education, science and research and investments in university.
Michel is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ernst Schering Foundation (Berlin).
Work
Hartmut Michel succeeded in 1982, the crystallization of the photosynthetic reaction center of the purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas viridis, thus creating the basis for a crystal structure analysis of the molecular structure. Together with Robert Huber and its working group, which included Johann Deisenhofer belonged, Michel was able to elucidate the three-dimensional structure and together, the researchers published their findings in December 1985.
The method by which Hartmut Michel reached the crystallization of the reaction centers, later he turned to a range of other organisms. The purple bacterium was more by chance the first organism in which this was achieved, and thus the photosynthesis center thereof was also the first membrane protein complex at all, which could be analyzed by X-ray analysis. The structure elucidation of photosynthetically active complex could first explain in more detail the atomic fine structure of this complex. Since the photosynthetic center of the purple bacterium is also built almost exactly like the higher plants, you can transfer the results on this.
Awards
Hartmut Michel was honored for his work in many ways, among the most important:
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, German Research Foundation, Otto- Klungkung Prize, 1986
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1988
- Medal of Merit of the State of Baden -Württemberg, 1989
- Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, 1995