Otto Heinrich Warberg

Otto Heinrich Warburg (8 October 1883 in Freiburg - 1 August 1970 in Berlin) was a German physiologist. In 1931 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. for his "discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme".

Biography

His father, physicist Emil Warburg, was president of the Imperial Institute of Physics. Otto studied chemistry with Emil Fischer and received his doctorate in chemistry in Berlin in 1906. He then studied with von Krehl and received his doctorate in medicine (Heidelberg) in 1911. He served in the Prussian Cavalry Guard during World War I.^{[citation required]}

In 1918 he was appointed professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem. From 1931 he was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology. There he received a donation from the Rockefeller Foundation to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, founded the year before.^{[citation needed ]}

Warburg's early research with Fischer was in the field of polypeptides. In Heidelberg, he worked on the oxidation process. His special interest in the investigation of life processes by physical and chemical methods led to attempts to relate these processes to phenomena of the inorganic world. His methods involved detailed studies on the assimilation of carbon dioxide in plants, the metabolism of tumors, and the chemical component of oxygen transferring respiratory ferment. Warburg was never a professor, and he was always grateful for the opportunity to devote his full time to scientific research. Subsequent research by him at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute has led to the discovery that flavins and nicotinamide were active groups of hydrogen transfer enzymes.

In 1931 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his "discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme".

Between 1931 and 1953, he was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (now the Max Planck Institute) for cell physiology in Berlin. He investigated the metabolism of tumors and cellular respiration, particularly of cancer cells. He wrote and edited The Metabolism of Tumors (1931) and New Methods of Cellular Physiology (1962).^{[citation needed]}

Warburg wrote in 1968: "I will soon receive a second Nobel Prize, because in two or three years I will have solved the problem of cancer." In 1944, Warburg was nominated for a second Nobel Prize in physiology by Albert Szent-Györgyi, for his work on nicotinamide, the mechanism of fermentation enzymes, and the discovery of flavin (in yellow enzymes). Some authors have hypothesized that the awarding of the Nobel prize was prevented by the regime of Adolf Hitler, which had issued a decree in 1937 preventing Germans from accepting Nobel prizes. However, according to the Nobel Foundation, this rumor is not true. true, since, although he was considered a candidate, he was not selected for the award.

Warburg's combined work in plant physiology, cell metabolism, and oncology made him a central figure in the later development of systems biology. He worked with Dean Burk on photosynthesis and discovered the I-quantum reaction that releases CO₂, activated by respiration.

Otto Warburg was a foreign member of the Royal Society of London (1934) and a member of the Academies of Berlin, Halle, Copenhagen, Rome and India. He was awarded the Ordre pour le Mérite and the Grand Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1965 he was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Oxford. ^{[citation required]}

He remained single until his death. He was interested in horse sport as a hobby.^{[citation needed]}

Posts

In addition to many publications of a lesser nature, Warburg is the author of:

• 1911. Über die Rolle des Eisens in der Atmung des Seeigeleis nebst Bemerkungen über einige durch Eisen beschleunigte Oxydationen m. Abb. (Sitzungsber. Heidelberger Akad. Wiss. math.-nat. Kl B Heidelberg, 1911) (From the role of iron in the breathing of the "Urchin Egg marine" and comments on some iron-accelerated oxidations. Proc. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences Heidelberg
• 1926. Stoffwechsel der Tumoren (Metabolism of tumors)
• 1928. Katalytische Wirkungen der lebendigen Substanz (Catholic effects of the living substance)
• 1946. Schwermetalle als Wirkungsgruppen von Fermenten (Prosthetic groups of heavy metals and enzyme control)
• 1947. Ideen zur Fermentchemie der Tumoren (Abh. der Deutschen Akad. der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Math-naturwissenschaft. Kl 1947, Berlin 1947) (Thesis on enzymatic tumor chemistry, Proc. German Academy of Sciences, Berlin, mathematical-scientific ?, Berlin
• 1948. Wasserstoffübertragende FermenteBerlin, Saenger 1948
• 1951. Wasserstoffubertragende Fermente
• 1955. Mechanism of Photosynthesis
• 1955. Entstehung der Krebszellen (Formation of cancer cells)
• 1962. Weiterentwicklung der zellphysiologischen Methoden: angewandt auf Krebs, Photosynthese und Wirkungsweise der Röntgenstrahlung: Arbeiten aus den Jahren 1945-1961. Thieme, Stuttgart 1962 (Other developments in cell physiology methods applied to cancer, photosynthesis and effects of X-ray radiation), texts in German and English.