Eduard Buchner is credited with introducing the field of modern enzyme chemistry. His research put an end to the widely accepted theory that fermentation of sugar to alcohol required the action of living (vital) yeast, which was promoted by such leading scientists as the French chemist Louis Pasteur. His work also discredited the mechanists' view that decomposing yeast cells acted as the catalyst for such change. For his pioneering efforts to scientifically explain the ancient process of fermentation, and for initiating the systematic study of enzymes, Buchner received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1907. In addition to being an outstanding chemist, he was a German patriot and soldier.
Eduard Buchner was born in Munich, Germany, May 20, 1860. He was descended from an old and scholarly Bavarian family. His father, Ernst Buchner, was a professor of obstetrics and forensic medicine, and the editor of a medical publication. Buchner's mother was Friederike Martin Buchner. After graduating from the Realgymnasium (high school) in Munich, he served in the field artillery, and later enrolled at Technische Hochschule (Technical College) in Munich, where he studied chemistry. Financial troubles forced him to temporarily leave his studies and work in canneries around Munich. With the help of his older brother, Buchner returned to school in 1884, attending the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich to study under the eminent chemist Adolf von Baeyer .
While still a chemistry student at the Academy of Sciences, Buchner began work on the problems of fermentation of sugar to alcohol at the Institute for Plant Physiology. By 1886, he had published his first paper on the subject, disagreeing with Pasteur's opinion that fermentation had to be carried out in an oxygen-free environment. In 1888, Buchner received his doctorate in chemistry from the Academy of Sciences, where he was appointed Baeyer's teaching assistant in 1890, advancing to Privatdozent, or lecturer, a year later. Baeyer also acquired the funds for a laboratory that would allow Buchner to continue his work on fermentation.
In 1893, Buchner accepted a position at the University of Kiel, where he was in charge of the analytical chemistry section for three years, while continuing his research on fermentation. Buchner's brother, Hans , was conducting similar research on extracts from bacteria, trying to find medically useful products. His assistant, Martin Hahn , showed Buchner a technique to break down yeast cell walls to extract the cell juices that Buchner required for his research.
In his Nobel address of 1907, translated in part in Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry, Buchner described the extraction process, in which a mixture of kiesulguhr (commonly known as diatomite) and black sand is used to reduce the difficulty of grinding the yeast. Buchner attributed a similar technique, in which quartz powder was used, to Marie von Manassein in Vienna, who, he believed, introduced the process in 1872. Buchner further explained that "the initially dust-dry mass... becomes dark gray and plastic, like dough. When this thick dough is wrapped in a strong cloth and put into a hydraulic press, a liquid juice seeps out under pressure which is gradually increased to 90 kg./sq. cm.... Within a few hours, 500 cu. cm. of liquid can be obtained from 1000 grams of yeast."
Because the clear, yellow fluid pressed from the ground yeast cells readily decomposed, Buchner, his brother, and Hahn added sugar to the syrup as a preservative. To their amazement, gas bubbles soon formed. Fermentation was in progress, yet there were no live, or decomposing, yeast cells in the mixture. Alcohol was being produced by cell-free fermentation ; they had made a revolutionary, and controversial, discovery.
Buchner was appointed professor of analytical pharmaceutical chemistry at University of Tübingen in 1896, and published the discovery of cell-free fermentation in the paper, "Alkoholische Gärung ohne Hefezellen" ("Alcoholic Fermentation without Yeast Cells"), the following year. Buchner left Tübingen for the Agricultural College in Berlin, where he was appointed professor of chemistry in 1898.
Buchner had a greater opportunity for his research in Berlin. Along with his appointment to the College, he was made director of the Institute for the Fermentation Industry. In 1900, he married Lotte Stahl, the daughter of a mathematician at the University of Tübingen. They had two sons and a daughter. Within four years of his arrival in Berlin, Buchner had published fifteen papers on cell-free fermentation. In 1903, the three researchers published a detailed account of their discoveries titled "Die Zymase: Gärung" ("The Zymase: Fermentation"). Buchner named the specific active agent in yeast cell extract "zymase" from the Greek word "zyme," which means yeast or ferment. As his research progressed, Buchner recognized that zymase was one example of an important class of natural substances called enzymes . He described his results in his Nobel address: "The cells of plants and animals appear, with increasing distinctness, as factories where in separate workshops all kinds of products are produced. The foremen in this work are the enzymes."
In 1909, Buchner accepted the position of head of physiological chemistry at the University of Breslau. Two years later, he was pleased to be invited to the University of Würzburg, in a region of Germany where he could also enjoy his hobbies of hunting and climbing. At the outset of World War I in 1914, Buchner volunteered for the army. He saw action as a captain of an ammunition supply unit, and was promoted to major in 1916, just before he returned to the University of Würzburg. Buchner again volunteered for active duty the following year and was sent to Focsani, Rumania, where he died from a shrapnel wound on August 13, 1917.
This is the complete article, containing 926 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
