Kurt Mothes

Born Nov. 3, 1900, in Plauen, German Democratic Republic. German biochemist. Member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, president of the Leopoldine German Academy of Researchers in Natural Sciences in Halle, foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and foreign member of the Royal Society of London (1971).

Mothes graduated from the University of Leipzig in 1925. From 1935 to 1945 he was a professor at the University of Konigsberg (Kaliningrad), and beginning in 1950, at the University of Halle. He was head of the biochemistry department at the Institut für Kulturpflanzenforschung in Gatersleben from 1949 to 1957, director of the Botanical Institute at the University of Halle from 1958 to 1960, and director of the German Academy of Sciences Plant Biochemistry Institute at Halle from 1958 to 1965. Mothes’ main works are devoted to the biochemistry of alkaloids, of nitrogen metabolism in plants, and of growth regulators (such as cytokinins) in plants.