History of the Institute

History of the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Brief chronology

The development up to 1920

At the time when Freiburg fell from the Habsburg Empire to the Grand Duchy of Baden, the Faculty of Medicine had five full professors. One of them was Franz Ignaz Menzinger (1745-1830), who served as full professor of chemistry and botany from 1775 to 1826. In 1780, he was authorized to establish a chemical laboratory in the Old University on Franziskanerplatz. He established the subject of pharmaceutical chemistry as an independent part of the Faculty of Medicine’s curriculum.

His successor in chemistry teaching was Franz von Ittner (1727-1821), who was a member of the Faculty of Philosophy. After him, there were two professors of chemistry in Freiburg, one of whom belonged to the Faculty of Philosophy and the other to the Faculty of Medicine. It is not surprising that this arrangement was a source of resentment and controversy for decades.

In 1828, Carl Fromherz (1797-1854) became a full professor of chemistry at the Faculty of Medicine. As a private lecturer, he had already given lectures on “Animal Chemistry” in Freiburg in 1822. In 1835, he introduced a lecture series on “Physiological Chemistry” and held a practical course (together with his assistant L. von Babo (1818-1899)) on chemical-physiological and chemical-pathological investigations. Fromherz marked the beginning of the natural sciences’ integration into medicine in Freiburg. He served as dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1832 to 1833.

Lambert von Babo succeeded Fromherz in 1854 and became full professor of chemistry in the Faculty of Medicine in 1859, a position he held until 1883. von Babo was a student of Justus von Liebig and is still known today for his invention of the “Babo funnel” for heating glass flasks. His colleague Adolf Claus became full professor of chemistry at the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1882, both established an institute at approximately the site of today’s Chemistry Tower (corner of Albert and Katharinen Streets).

However, it was the physiologist Johann Latschenberger (1847-1905) who, as a private lecturer, offered lectures on physiological chemistry in 1874/75, responding to suggestions from Liebig, who had described this field as essential for physiology. In 1880, he was appointed to teach physiological chemistry (and toxicology). However, the Medical Faculty rejected his appointment as a full professor, arguing that “pure chemists” were not needed for teaching. Latschenberger subsequently left the faculty in 1883. It would take another 40 years before a chair for physiological chemistry was established in Freiburg.

Babos’s successor was Eugen Baumann (1846-1896), a student of Hoppe-Seyler. He held the chair of medicinal chemistry as a full professor from 1883 until his death in 1896. From 1890 to 1891, he was dean of the medical faculty. He gained great respect through numerous original works. These included biologically interesting sulfur-containing compounds, such as cystine and thioketones; the term “mercaptal” is attributed to him. He discovered conjugated sulfuric acids in urine and diethylsulfondimethylmethane, which soon afterward was used clinically as the sleeping aid “Sulfonal.” Furthermore, together with his student Wolkow, he discovered homogentisic acid in the urine of a patient with alkaptonuria and linked it to tyrosine metabolism. The use of benzoyl chloride to characterize amino and hydroxyl groups is attributed to Baumann; Every chemist is familiar with the “Schotten-Baumann” reaction. Baumann’s research on the organically bound iodine of the thyroid, which he named “iodothysine,” ended prematurely with his death.

Kiliani Kiliani

From 1897 to 1920, Heinrich Kiliani (1855-1945) was Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and headed the Medical Department of the Chemical Laboratory. He was a student of Emil Fischer in Munich and had already made a name for himself there through his research on carbohydrates. Among other things, he was responsible for the widely used cyanohydrin synthesis, by which sugars can be extended by one carbon unit. In Freiburg, he studied the constituents of digitalis; while investigating the aglycone of these compounds, he discovered two sugars, digitoxose and digitalose. Among his students was the later Nobel Prize winner Adolf Windaus (1876-1959). Kiliani was Dean of the Medical Faculty from 1903 to 1904. During this phase, he paved the way for the specialization of physiological chemistry by commissioning Franz Knoop, who had come to Freiburg in 1903—even before his habilitation (1904)—to give a lecture in physiological chemistry. By resolution of the Medical Faculty on April 23, 1915, the Physiological Chemistry Department received its own premises in the old Botanical Institute, which had been established in 1882 in what is now the Physics/Pharmacology Department. The Physiological Chemistry Practical Course was also to be independent of the Physiology Practical Course.

Franz Knoop and the Chair of Physiological Chemistry in Freiburg

In 1920, Georg Franz Knoop (1875-1946) was appointed to the chair of Physiological Chemistry (the first in Germany!), which was assigned to the Faculty of Medicine. This marked the birth of the independent subject of Physiological Chemistry in Freiburg! Physiology and Physiological Chemistry agreed to separate “as distinct, mutually complementary disciplines, which should be the basis for appointments.” In 1925, Knoop was elected Dean of the Faculty of Medicine.

Knoop had already begun metabolic studies with phenyl-labeled fatty acids in 1902 and, in the following years, developed the concept of ß-oxidation of fatty acids in groundbreaking work. In later years, he also devoted himself, with success, to the mechanism and reversibility of the reductive amination of keto acids. In 1942, Knoop, together with Dankwart Ackermann, founded the “German Physiological-Chemical Society,” which was renamed the “Society for Physiological Chemistry” in 1947, the “Society for Biological Chemistry” in 1968, and the “Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology” in 1995. He was the long-time editor of “Hoppe-Seyler’s Journal of Physiological Chemistry,” which is now published under the title “Biological Chemistry.” His student Karl Thomas (1883-1969), later Professor of Physiological Chemistry in Leipzig and Frankfurt, characterized Knoop as follows: “Franz Knoop was a scholar in the traditional sense and, although successful in a predominantly scientific field, a physician by training. There was something comforting in this for those who perceive with disquiet the progressive emancipation of the field from personal disposition. Such a man was still granted the privilege of laying foundations in his field.” Hans A. Krebs, who received the Nobel Prize in 1953 for the discovery of the citric acid cycle, remembered Knoop with less nostalgia but all the greater respect; he attributed to Knoop his interest in cellular intermediary metabolism, the area that shaped his entire scientific life and brought him his greatest successes. Through Knoop, Krebs also learned a practical side of academic research life: Knoop’s career path made it clear to him that at a university, one was generally not paid for basic research, but only for teaching, self-administration, and possibly healthcare. Research was considered a privilege to which one could devote one’s “free time” and with one’s own resources within the university’s facilities. The importance of unpaid doctoral students and research assistants for this period becomes clear. The great successes achieved at German universities during this period, especially in labor-intensive natural sciences, speak all the more for the scientists’ willingness to make sacrifices.

The 1920s were a time of heyday for the natural sciences, especially biologically oriented disciplines, in Freiburg. Between the end of the First World War (1918) and the Nazi seizure of power (1933), the future Nobel Prize winners Heinrich Wieland (1877-1957; “Structure of Bile Acids”), Georg Karl von Hevesy (1885-1966; “Isotopes as Indicators of Metabolism”), Hermann Staudinger (1881-1965; “Macromolecular Chemistry”), Hans Spemann (1869-1941; “Organizers of Embryonic Development”), and Hans Adolf Krebs (1900-1981; “Urea Cycle”) worked there, as did Rudolf Schönheimer (1898-1941; “The Dynamic State of Body Components”), in the field of pathobiochemistry established by Ludwig Aschoff at the Pathological Institute.

Despite support from the faculty, Knoop tried in vain to replace the inadequate premises in the old Botanical Institute with a new building. Frustrated, he accepted a position at the University of Tübingen in 1928, at the age of 53.

Josef Kapfhammer

Josef Kapfhammer (1888-1968) was appointed Knoop’s successor in 1928. After an apprenticeship as a pharmacist, he had completed doctorates in chemistry and medicine and had completed his habilitation under Karl Thomas in Leipzig. Upon his appointment, he had to make do with the premises that had forced Knoop to abandon. His persistent efforts to establish a new institute were unsuccessful; only in 1929 did he receive a barracks with 80 course places. It is not without interest that, even half a century later, decades of efforts to establish a new Biochemical Institute were fobbed off in 1992 with a lightweight building for courses and seminars (see below). In 1934, Kapfhammer was appointed dean by the rector; the Führer principle prevailed in the Third Reich, and democratic legitimacy was frowned upon.

Josef Kapfhammer

When assessing the rather modest scientific output of this chair (work on guanidino acids and peptides, as well as on proline and hydroxyproline), one must consider the extremely difficult conditions under which it was developed: First, there was the inadequate space in the old Botanical Institute with its six, sometimes tiny, rooms, which were declared ready for demolition by the District Building Authority as late as 1941; then the inadequate equipment with only two staff positions; then the problems of the Nazi era and, finally, the restrictions caused by World War II. Finally, the institute was totally destroyed in an Allied bombing raid on November 27, 1944. The makeshift solutions after the war (temporary accommodation in some rooms of the Dermatology Clinic, the Animal Hygiene Institute, and, finally, the Surgical Clinic) were hardly suitable for establishing modern research. Kapfhammer was still involved in the planning of the new building for Physiology and Physiological Chemistry (Hermann-Herder-Straße 7).

Das Institut vor der Zerstörung	Das Institut nach der Zerstörung

Kapfhammer demonstrated his willingness to commit himself to medicine through his joint initiative with the anatomist von Möllendorff to establish a school for medical-technical assistants (of which he was director in 1935/36) and through his long-term commitment to the Red Cross.

Helmut Holzer

Kapfhammer’s retirement in 1956 was not as harmonious as he deserved, not least due to protests from the student body. The Medical Faculty endeavored to find a replacement as quickly as possible and appointed the young lecturer Helmut Holzer (1921-1997) from Hamburg as acting deputy chair. Within a few months, he proved himself so successful that the faculty appointed him Kapfhammer’s successor and director of the (newly established) Institute of Physiological Chemistry. The formal appointment took place in 1957. Holzer was still able to influence the final expansion of the new institute, which was planned to be spacious and modern for the time. With Holzer, a student of Lynen, the era of modern and highly successful biochemistry began in Freiburg. With his considerably expanded staff, Holzer completely redesigned lectures and practical courses. With his research on the mechanism of thiamine pyrophosphate-catalyzed reactions and his investigations into the metabolism of tumor cells, he and the institute gained worldwide recognition within just a few years.

Helmut Holzer

Following international custom, the institute (and the chair) was renamed the “Biochemical Institute” in 1963. In 1964, Holzer—the first non-medical professional—was elected Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Thanks to his appointments from the Technical University of Munich and the Max Planck Society, he was also able to realize his plan for a second professorship in biochemistry.

Karl Decker

In 1968, Karl Decker, who was on a visiting professorship in the USA, was appointed to this chair. Decker, too, was a student of Lynen and had been a lecturer and scientific advisor at the institute since 1960. After turning down simultaneous offers to Erlangen and Göttingen, he took over the chair of Biochemistry II on the first floor of the institute. At the same time, the institute’s departmental structure was implemented, which is still in effect today—in 2002. The management of the entire institute rotated among the full professors every two years.

Table 1                                Professors and lecturers at the institute

Reflecting the growing importance of the subject, biochemistry was represented in Freiburg, in addition to the two chairs at the Institute of Biochemistry, also in the Chemical Laboratory and the Institute of Biology II. Kurt Wallenfels (1910-1995) headed the Biochemistry Department of the Chemical Laboratory as an associate professor from 1953 and as a full professor from 1961 to 1978. His successor at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry was Georg Schulz (*1939) in 1983. Hans Grisebach (1926-1990) became a full professor in 1964 and held a chair in Plant Biochemistry at the newly established Institute of Biology II. His successor since 1992 has been Wolfgang Haehnel.

The institute survived the profound changes and turmoil of 1968-70 without significant damage. However, as a member of the Constitutional Commission, Holzer was subjected to considerable personal pressure from various quarters. The university’s new constitution split the Faculty of Medicine into a theoretical (I) and a clinical (II) faculty. A “Joint Committee” ensured the preservation of this unity. Decker was elected Dean of the Faculty of Medicine I in 1970/71. In 1974, the two faculties’ request for reunification was finally granted. From 1972-77, Decker served as Vice-Rector for Research.

The institute has consistently been very successful in acquiring third-party funding for research. In addition to numerous individual projects, most of the institute’s research groups participated in Collaborative Research Centers (CRCs) (Table 2) and research groups with longer-term funding periods. The CRC was inaugurated by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 1969. In collaboration with research groups from the Biological Institutes, CRC 46 “Molecular Basis of Development” [“Molgrudent”] was the first in Freiburg to be applied for and approved by the DFG.

Table 2   Collaborative Research Centres (SFB) and other institutionalised funding instruments with the participation of the Institute

The institute’s scientific productivity and attractiveness in the second half of the 20th century were evident in the number of publications (> 1,400), dissertations (302, as far as can still be determined, of which 58% were Dr. med., 42% Dr. rer. nat., supervised by 28 “doctoral supervisors”), habilitations (Table 3), and, last but not least, the large number of foreign visiting scholars (Table 4). Independence and solid specialist knowledge were specifically encouraged among academic staff. For a long time, attendance at least once at the main lecture and, in particular, all institute colloquia was mandatory. The young scholars were expected to acquire knowledge of the current state of research not only in their immediate field of work.

Table 3                   Habilitations since the reconstruction of the institute.

Table 4               Foreign visiting scientists since the reconstruction of the institute

In the two decades following 1970, a shift in research directions took place. While chemistry and the regulation of enzymatic processes had previously been central concerns, cell and molecular biology gained the upper hand during this phase, both in terms of subject matter and methodology. This is also reflected in the observation that the number of dissertations for the Dr. rer. nat. degree steadily increased compared to those for the Dr. med. degree. The 1970s also saw the development of diverse and close collaborations with clinical researchers, particularly those in the Department of Medicine. In addition to the SFBs and a “Hepatology” research group (Table 2), the “Macrophage Project” was generously funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 1977 to 1981. The institute (Karl Decker) participated in this project together with the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology, Freiburg, (Otto Westphal), and the Institute of Molecular Pathology, Brussels (Christian DeDuve). An interesting attempt at cooperation between theoretical and clinical working groups at the university, the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and the Goedecke company in Freiburg was the joint research project “Tumor Detection and Tumor Defense”, funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology, whose spokesperson was Karl Decker from 1988 to 1993.

After 32 years of extremely fruitful work, which, among many other honors, was recognized by a doctorate from the University of Tokushima (Japan) and the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class, Helmut Holzer became Professor Emeritus in 1989. Since his successor took an unexpectedly long time to find, he was able to continue his scientific work in his laboratories until 1991, and then on a more modest scale in a small laboratory on the fifth floor of the institute until his death in 1997.

In 1991, however, it became necessary to appoint a temporary replacement for the chair. Bernd Wiederanders from Halle/Saale was found to be a colleague committed to research and teaching, whose one-year assignment ensured the continuity of the chair’s most important functions.

Nikolaus Pfanner

In 1992, Nikolaus Pfanner (*1956) from Munich accepted the position after rejecting offers from Marburg, Homburg, and Berlin, succeeding Holzer. He quickly succeeded in filling the chair with new ideas and great dynamism. In 1993, he took over as managing director of the institute. His initiative led to the establishment of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 388 in 1995, of which he served as spokesperson from the outset. The internationally high quality of research in biochemistry and molecular cell biology was reflected in publications in leading journals such as Nature and Cell.

The Physiological and Biochemical Institutes’ years of pressure for improvements and modernization of their space were met, although not by a new building, but by a single-story building for the teaching purposes of both institutes. In 1992, the teaching building was opened for use. The classrooms in the institute building were subsequently converted into laboratories and specialized rooms (e.g., an isotope laboratory).

Partick Baeuerle

Decker’s active service ended in 1993. As an emeritus professor, he initially had access to a laboratory in the basement, later on the fifth floor. His successor was found surprisingly quickly. Similar to Holzer’s successor, more than 130 colleagues applied for the Chair of Biochemistry II.

Patrick Baeuerle (*1957) was already serving as a full professor on the first floor in the winter semester of 1993/94. These two appointments significantly improved the institute’s financial and equipment resources. A name change was also intended to reflect the expansion of the biochemistry discipline. In 1995, the Ministry approved the designation “Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.” However, that year brought an unpleasant surprise: Baeuerle had barely filled his first-floor laboratories with new staff when, in the summer of 1995, he received an attractive offer from the biotech company Tularik and relocated to San Francisco just a few months later. At the beginning of 1996, the chair was vacant, but the laboratory was full of staff. In this situation, the faculty asked Karl Decker to temporarily assume his former chair again. Decker agreed to step in for a maximum of one year. In addition to his teaching duties, the future of the staff he left behind had to be planned. With luck and a great deal of goodwill from everyone involved, it was possible to find everyone acceptable positions within a year and clear the laboratory for his successor. The faculty, the rectorate, and the Ministry of Science did their part to ensure the chair was filled quickly.

Bernd Bukau

One year after Baeuerle’s departure, in March 1997, Bernd Bukau (*1954) from Heidelberg was able to assume his position as his successor after rejecting an offer from Cologne. The favorable financial situation, underscored by the successful collaborative research centers and the Gottlieb von Leibniz Prize awarded to Bernd Bukau in 1999, promoted the flourishing of the institute’s scientific activities in both research and teaching.

Biochemistry at the Freiburg Medical Faculty performed excellently both in the nationwide comparison of physics exam performance and in student assessments, with particular emphasis on the great commitment of Matthias Müller, who succeeded Johannes Ullrich as a C3 professor in 1996. Nikolaus Pfanner was voted the best preclinical lecturer several times in the Medical Faculty’s teaching evaluation, but Matthias Müller and Bernd Bukau also received excellent ratings.

Good news also came from the ministry: a new institute building had finally been approved, and the first of three construction phases had been included in the financial planning. This also gave substance to the plans of several institutes that intended to merge into a “Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Research.” The new building would house not only the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology but also the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Cell Research. The foundation stone for this complex, the planned “Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Research,” was laid in 2001. One flaw, with serious consequences, was the postponement of funding for the third construction phase, which is essential for the functions of biochemistry. Since a deadline for the completion of the new building and its takeover by the biochemistry department could not be obtained, Bernd Bukau decided to accept a call from Heidelberg University and give up his chair at the institute in 2002. Within a decade, the chair changed hands four times.

However, with the active support of the Faculty of Medicine, the Hospital, and the University administration, a personnel restructuring of the Institute – also in light of the 2002 Higher Education Framework Act – was initiated in 2002. Interestingly, the departmental structure introduced more than three decades ago provides an excellent and still modern foundation for this.

Restaffing the Institute’s secretariat was also initially difficult: after Regina Wilke, who had fulfilled this important role for 37 years with great commitment, high competence, and fine collegiality, her successor stayed at the Institute for barely a year; the University could not compete with the opportunities in the private sector. However, with Ingeborg Friesse, a dynamic and committed successor was found.

Without a doubt, the restructuring of the Institute will ensure continued success and unbroken momentum.

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