Albrecht kossel

Ludwig Karl Martin Leonhard Albrecht Kossel (Rostock, Germany, September 16, 1853-Heidelberg, Germany, July 5, 1927) was a German physician.

Biography

Son of Albrecht Kossel, Prussian consul and his wife Clara. He studied medicine at the University of Rostock and in 1872 continued his studies at the University of Strasbourg, where he received lessons from Bary, Waldeyer, Kundt, Baeyer and Felix Hoppe-Seyler. He obtained his bachelor's degree in 1878.

He directed the Institute of Physiology in Berlin. He later accessed the Marburg Chair of Physiology, holding it in Heidelberg, the city where he died in 1927.

He discovered nucleic acids. This German biochemist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1910 for his contributions in deciphering the chemistry of nucleic acids and proteins, discovering the nucleic acids, bases in the DNA molecule, which constitute the genetic substance. of the cell.

His research vocation introduced him to the area of cellular physiology and following Miescher's discoveries he began to develop a series of studies that led him to important conclusions about protein synthesis, to highlight the importance of enzymes and to intuit the role of nucleic acids in heredity. He laid the foundations for the structure of DNA by studying nucleins (nucleoproteins) showing that they consisted of a protein portion and a non-protein portion (nucleic acids).

Later, he describes its components, distinguishing between adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine and uracil. Kossel established the bases that led to the elucidation of the structure of DNA.

" …his elucidation of the chemical nature of some building blocks that make up nucleic acids and chromatine has secured immortality for this exceedingly modest and almost shy man."