Joachim Seelig

Joachim Heinrich Seelig ( born March 29, 1942 in Cologne ) is a German physical chemist and specialist in NMR spectroscopy. He is one of the founding members of the Biozentrum, University of Basel.

Life

Joachim Seelig studied from 1961 to 1968 chemistry and physics at the University of Cologne. In 1968 he received his doctorate in Manfred Eigen, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, at the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in Göttingen. Then researched Seelig as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in 1968/69 to electron spin resonance. In 1970 he became a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Physical Chemistry, University of Basel, where in 1972 he was group leader and assistant professor. In 1974 he became Associate Professor in 1982 and Professor of Structural Biology at the Biozentrum, University of Basel.

Work

Joachim Seelig biophysical methods developed for the study of the structure and thermodynamic properties of biological cell membranes. The interaction of proteins and lipids was studied by EPR spectroscopy, deuterium and phosphorus nuclear magnetic resonance neutron scattering and calorimetric methods. The quantitative characterization of the biological membrane has been the international standard for further theoretical studies. His second area of ​​work were magnetic resonance imaging (MRI ) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy ( MRS) in humans and animals. With C-13 NMR of metabolism could be monitored non-invasively in the human and animal brain. With fast MRI imaging techniques, the tonotopy of the human brain has been described.

Awards

Publications (selection )

  • A. Seelig and J. Seelig, The dynamic structure of fatty acyl chains in a phospholipid bilayer Measured by deuterium magnetic resonance. In Biochemistry 13, 4839-4845 (1974 ) PMID: 4371820
  • J. Seelig, P. M. Macdonald, and P.G. Scherer, Phospholipid head groups as sensors of electric charge in membranes. In Biochemistry 26, 7535-7541 (1987 ) PMID: 3322401
  • N. Beckmann, I. Turkalij, J. Seelig and U. Keller, 13C NMR for the assessment of human brain glucose metabolism in vivo. In Biochemistry 30, 6362-6366 (1991 ) PMID: 2054342
  • A. Ziegler, P. Nervi, M. Dürr Berger, and J. Seelig, The Cationic Cell - Penetrating Peptide CPP (TAT ) Derived from the HIV -1 protein TAT is Rapidly Transported into Living Fibroblasts: Optical, Biophysical, and Metabolic Evidence. In Biochemistry 44, 138-148 (2005) PMID: 15628854
  • F. Zehender, A. Ziegler, H.-J. Schonfeld, and J. Seelig, Thermodynamics of protein self- association and unfolding, The case of apolipoprotein AI. In Biochemistry 51, 1269-1280 (2012 ) PMID: 22320308
Biophysics Heinrich Wieland Prize PubMed
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