Class
| • | 2. Biological Sciences | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Dr. Rudolf K. Thauer | | | Institution: | Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology; Philipps University Marburg | | | Year Elected: | 2018 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1939 | | | | | | |
Born 1939 in Frankfurt, Germany, I went to school in Wetter, Landshut, Philadelphia, USA (1947-1951) and Bad Nauheim and then studied Medicine and Biochemistry at the Universities of Frankfurt, Tubingen and Freiburg, where I ended my studies 1968 with a PhD in Biochemistry and a Thesis on the "Energy Metabolism of Clostridium kluyveri." Ever since then my scientific interest remained focused on how strictly anaerobic microorganisms conserve energy. Discoveries made were amongst others that carbon monoxide is an intermediate in autotrophic CO2 fixation via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway and that the trace element nickel is required by many anaerobes as cofactor of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, hydrogenases and methyl-coenzyme M reductase. The latter enzyme has a nickel tetrapyrrole as prosthetic group and catalyzes both methane formation and methane oxidation in Archaea. After a short postdoc in 1971 with Harland Wood at Case Western University Chicago, I was appointed in 1972 Associate Professor for Biochemistry at the Ruhr University in Bochum, in 1976 Full Professor for Microbiology at the Philipps University Marburg and in 1991 Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg. After my retirement as Director at the end of 2007 I continued research at the Max Planck Institute that led together with Wolfgang Buckel to the discovery of flavin-based electron bifurcation that changed our understanding how most anaerobes conserve energy. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Robin A. Weiss | | | Institution: | University College London | | | Year Elected: | 2018 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 205. Microbiology | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1940 | | | | | | |
Robin Weiss is Emeritus Professor of Viral Oncology at University College London. He has spent most of his career conducting research on oncogenic viruses and on HIV. He is noted for his contributions to the discovery of endogenous retroviral genomes and for identifying CD4 as the HIV receptor. His expanded his research on avian endogenous retroviruses inherited through the host genome to consider mammalian retroviruses including the potential infection hazard by these agents in xenotransplantation of pig tissues to humans. He studied viral oncogenes and viruses involved in AIDS-linked malignancies such as Kaposi’s sarcoma. He showed that in dogs, a sexually transmitted tumor cell clone emerged around 10,000 years ago which has colonized dogs worldwide and continues to spread as a ‘parasite’. He applied pseudotype techniques originally devised for retroviruses to the study of receptors and antibody neutralization for other viruses such as influenza, rabies and ebola. He recently exploited single-chain llama nanobodies for HIV vaccines and diagnostics and he currently investigates the history of infectious diseases. Weiss was Director of Research at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, 1980-1999, and was President of the Society for General Microbiology, 2006-2009. He has chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and served on the Board of Directors of the Africa Health Research Institute and on the Nuffield Council for Bioethics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. | |
| |