Warburg, Otto Heinrich
Warburg, Otto Heinrich
(ŏt`ō hīn`rĭkh vär`bo͝orkh), 1883–1970, German physiologist. He was director (1931–53) of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (now Max Planck Institute) for cell physiology at Berlin. He investigated the metabolism of tumors and the respiration of cells, particularly cancer cells. For his discovery of the nature and the mode of action of (Warburg's) yellow enzyme, he won the 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He edited The Metabolism of Tumours (tr. 1931) and wrote New Methods of Cell Physiology (1962).Warburg, Otto Heinrich
Born Oct. 8, 1883, in Freiburg, Baden; died Aug. 1, 1970, in West Berlin. German biochemist and physiologist, a student of E. Fischer; foreign member of the Royal Society in London.
Warburg studied in Berlin and Heidelberg; in 1906 he defended his doctoral thesis in chemistry and, in 1911, a thesis in medicine. In 1930 he became director of the Institute of Cell Physiology in Berlin. His studies broadened the understanding of the processes of oxidation and renewal in the living cell; in 1931 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for discovering the nature and function of the so-called respiratory enzymes. He also developed and perfected a great many instruments, apparatus, and biological research techniques that are widely used in chemistry and physiology. A number of Warburg’s works are devoted to the study of changes of substances in the cells of tumors and to questions of photosynthesis and the chemistry of fermentation.
WORKS
Über den Stoffwechsel in der Tumoren. Berlin, 1926.Über die katalytischen Wirkungen der lebendigen Substanz. Berlin, 1928.
Schwermetalle als Wirkungsgruppen von Fermenten, 2nd ed. Berlin, 1948.