- Person
- Richard Willstätter
- Lived
- 1872–1942
- Field
- Organic chemistry
- From
- German
The story
Enzymes speed up the chemical reactions of life, but in the early twentieth century many scientists still thought of them as mysterious properties of living cells. Richard Willstätter first met them during his work on chlorophyll. He noticed that an enzyme in plant tissue, chlorophyllase, could swap part of the chlorophyll molecule for ethanol. The observation awakened an interest that became the main subject of his later research.
After the First World War, back in Munich as Adolf von Baeyer's successor, Willstätter set out to treat enzymes as ordinary chemicals. From 1918 to 1925 he and his associates worked to purify a range of them, including peroxidase, lipase, trypsin and amylase. He developed reproducible methods of adsorbing enzymes onto materials such as alumina or silica gel and then washing them off with solutions of varying acidity, and he introduced improved tests for measuring enzyme activity. In a related series of nine papers he studied the metal hydroxides and gels he used as adsorbents.
With these techniques he showed that enzymes could be separated, concentrated and studied in the laboratory, and he did much to establish that they are chemical substances rather than living organisms. His papers on the subject were collected in 1928, and he described his approach in Problems and Methods in Enzyme Research, published in 1927.
He was wrong on one big point. Willstätter believed that enzymes were small molecules carried on larger supports, and he questioned James Sumner's 1926 claim to have crystallised the enzyme urease as a protein. When pepsin and other enzymes were also isolated as crystalline proteins, his view was abandoned. Even so, his methods were influential, and his work produced useful drugs: the enzymatic reduction of chloral and bromal gave the sedative trichloroethanol and the anaesthetic tribromoethanol, sold as Avertin, which is still used on laboratory animals.
His students carried the work forward. Richard Kuhn, who earned his doctorate with Willstätter in 1922 on enzyme specificity, later won a Nobel Prize. The German Patent Office calls Willstätter's research on enzymes a precursor of modern biochemistry.
Why it matters
Purifying and studying enzymes as chemicals laid groundwork for modern biochemistry, including the enzymes used today in medicine, food and industry.
About Richard Willstätter
Nobel-winning chemist who unravelled chlorophyll and the colours of flowers, refused to convert, resigned his chair in protest at antisemitism and died a refugee in Switzerland.
More about Richard Willstätter
- Richard Willstätter helped explain why carrots are orangeWhile purifying chlorophyll, Richard Willstätter found yellow by-products that turned out to be carotenoids, beginning the scientific study of the pigments in carrots, tomatoes and egg yolks.
- Richard Willstätter decoded the colours of flowersRichard Willstätter discovered that most red, purple and blue flowers owe their colour to three related pigments, and that acidity or alkalinity in the sap helps decide the shade.
- Richard Willstätter discovered chlorophyll a and bAfter studying chlorophyll from more than 200 kinds of plants, Richard Willstätter showed it is always a mix of two pigments, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b, in a ratio of about three to one.
- Richard Willstätter corrected the structure of cocaineAs a young doctoral student in Munich, Richard Willstätter showed that the accepted chemical structure of cocaine was wrong, launching his career in the chemistry of plant alkaloids.
- Richard Willstätter made a molecule that tested a theoryRichard Willstätter synthesised cyclooctatetraene, a ring of eight carbon atoms, and showed it does not behave like benzene, an important test of ideas about chemical stability.
- Richard Willstätter built a gas mask filter in five weeksRefusing to work on poison gas, Richard Willstätter instead designed a protective gas mask filter in about five weeks in 1915, shielding soldiers from chlorine and phosgene.
- Richard Willstätter found magnesium at chlorophyll's heartRichard Willstätter showed that magnesium is an essential part of chlorophyll, the green pigment plants use to capture sunlight, work that won him the 1915 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
- Richard Willstätter resigned to protest antisemitismIn 1924 Richard Willstätter gave up one of Germany's most prestigious chairs of chemistry in protest after his Munich colleagues refused to appoint a scientist because he was Jewish.
Sources
- Richard Willstätter Encyclopedia.com
- Richard Willstätter Wikipedia
- Richard Willstätter, Great Inventors German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA)
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.