100th birthday of Otto Warburg - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1983 - 50 Pfennig

Otto Warburg was one of the most outstanding scientists of his time. He, who has devoted his life to the service of science, has made many fundamental discoveries in cell biology and biochemistry over the course of more than six decades of research. Otto Warburg's parents' house was in Berlin. Through his father, an outstanding physicist, Otto Warburg got to know the most famous scientists of his time, such as the later Nobel laureates Emil Fischer, Walther Nernst, Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff, Max Planck and Albert Einstein. Otto Warburg began studying chemistry in 1901 at the University of Freiburg, later moving to Berlin, where he received his doctorate in 1906 from Emil Fischer, the most important organic chemist of his time. Fischer's working style, his reliability, his sense of honor, his integrity, his sense of responsibility and his self-discipline were an ideal role model for Otto Warburg. Warburg's scientific achievements were based on an extraordinary intellect and profound intelligence combined with originality and inventiveness in dealing with new problems and independence from conventional views, judgments and prejudices. An extraordinary clarity achieved through simplicity, brevity, and rigorous scientific logic marked Warburg's style. In his scientific work, Otto Warburg investigated the basics of cellular respiration and cell metabolism with the aim of elucidating the nature of processes that convert nutrients to build up the body's own compounds and generate energy. He may rightly be regarded as the "founder" of modern biochemistry. Impressive were his experimental skills and his imagination in the development of new methods. Even today, in international literature, terms such as "Warburg Test" and "Warburg Manometer" are used. Warburg succeeded for the first time to represent enzymes, biological catalysts, in greater numbers and in a pure form and also to elucidate their mechanism of action. His experimental results enabled him to describe the chemical principle of biological dehydration and the mode of action of vitamins. He demonstrated in the oxidation reaction of fermentation the conversion of oxidation energy into the energy of the phosphate residue, he saw the fermentation of cancer cells and made crucial contributions to the elucidation of photosynthesis and the importance of heavy metals, especially iron, in biological systems. His work on the chemistry of life processes has been the basis for the development of biochemistry and biophysics in the twenties and thirties. His discoveries are the general basis of the textbooks. From 1913 until his death in 1970, ie almost sixty years, Otto Warburg belonged to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society or the Max Planck Society. Since its founding, he has been Director of the Institute of Cell Biology. In addition to numerous other awards, Otto Warburg received the 1931 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. In an era that spawned so many eminent scientists, he was one of the pioneers. If you compare the building of science with a cathedral, which owes its creation only a few architects, but many craftsmen, so Otto Warburg belonged to the small group of such architects of his generation. (Text: Professor Dr. Horst Sund, Faculty of Biology, University of Konstanz)