Feodor Lynen was a well-respected biochemist whose work led to a better understanding of how cells make and use cholesterol and other materials necessary for life. His discovery of the structure of acetyl-coenzyme A led to a detailed description of the steps of several important life processes, including the metabolism of both cholesterol and fatty acids. Aside from influencing biochemistry, his work was also important to medicine because cholesterol was known to contribute to heart attacks, strokes, and other circulatory diseases. For his work on cholesterol and the fatty acid cycle, Lynen shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology with German-American biochemist Konrad Emil Bloch.
Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen was born in Munich, Germany, on April 6, 1911, the seventh of eight children. His father, Wilhelm L. Lynen, was a professor of engineering at the Munich Technical University. His mother, Frieda (Prym) Lynen, cared for the family. Lynen showed an early interest in his older brother's chemistry experiments but remained undecided about his career throughout secondary school. He considered medicine and even thought of becoming a ski instructor. Ultimately, he enrolled in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Munich in 1930, where he studied with German chemist and Nobel laureate Heinrich Wieland. Wieland was Lynen's principal teacher both as an undergraduate and graduate student. On February 12, 1937, Lynen received his doctorate degree. Three months later, on May 17, he married Wieland's daughter, Eva, with whom he would have five children: Peter, Annemarie, Susanne, Eva-Marie, and Heinrich.
Upon his graduation, Lynen stayed at the University of Munich in a postdoctoral research position. In 1942, he was appointed a lecturer, and he became an associate professor in 1947. Throughout his years with the University, where he stayed until his death, Lynen supervised the research of nearly ninety students, many of whom reached leading positions in academia or industry.
In the early 1940s, Germany entered into war against much of Europe and, eventually, the United States. Lynen, however, was exempt from both military service and work in Nazi paramilitary organizations because of a permanently damaged knee that resulted from a ski accident in 1932. The onset of World War II made it difficult to continue working in Munich and, in an effort to maintain his research, Lynen moved his lab to a small village, Schondorf on the Ammersee, about eighteen miles from Munich. In 1945, the University's Department of Chemistry in Munich was completely destroyed. In the chaotic aftermath of Germany's surrender, scientific research halted altogether. Lynen eventually continued his work at various lab facilities, but did not return to the rebuilt Department of Chemistry until 1949.
In the first years after the war, German scientists were spurned by their European and American colleagues. Only four German biochemists were invited to attend the First International Congress of Biochemistry held in Cambridge, England, in July of 1949. Lynen, one of the four, made an ideal good-will ambassador for Germany because of his good sense of humor and the fondness he had for parties. "I believe the problem of mankind is its lack of simple joys," Lynen is quoted as saying in Current Biography Yearbook. "I think one should drink for fun occasionally." His cheery nature and solid research drew many foreign scientists to Munich. His magnetic personality was formally recognized years later when, in 1975, he was chosen to serve as president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an institution devoted to fostering relations between Germany and the international scientific community.
During the 1940s, Lynen began studying how the living cell changes simple chemical compounds into sterols and lipids, complex molecules that the body needs to sustain life. The long sequence of steps and the roles various enzymes and vitamins played in this complicated metabolic process were not well understood. After World War II, Lynen began to publish his early findings. At the same time, he became aware of similar work being conducted in the United States by Bloch. Eventually, Lynen and Bloch began to correspond, sharing their preliminary discoveries with each other. By working in this manner, the scientists determined the sequence of thirty-six steps by which animal cells produce cholesterol.
One of the breakthroughs in the cholesterol synthesis work came in 1951 when Lynen published a paper describing the first step in the chain of reactions that resulted in the production of cholesterol. He had discovered that a compound known as acetyl-coenzyme A, which is formed when an acetate radical reacts with coenzyme A, was needed to begin the chemical chain reaction. For the first time, the chemical structure of acetyl-coenzyme A was described in accurate detail. By solving this complex biochemical problem, Lynen established his international reputation and created a new set of challenging biochemical problems. Determining the structure of acetyl-coenzyme A supplied Lynen with the discovery he needed to advance his research.
Lynen, who had remained an enthusiastic skier even after his 1932 accident, suffered a second serious ski injury at the end of 1951. (Although the second accident left him with a pronounced limp, Lynen continued to hike, swim, mountain climb, and ski.) During his rehabilitation, he contemplated how the structure and action of acetyl-coenzyme A made it a likely participant in other biochemical processes. Upon his return to the lab, Lynen began investigating the role of acetyl-coenzyme A in the biosynthesis of fatty acids and discovered that, as with cholesterol, this substance was the necessary first step. Lynen also investigated the catabolism of fatty acids, the chemical reactions that produce energy when fatty acids in foods are burned up to form carbon dioxide and water.
In 1953, Lynen was made full professor at the University of Munich. A year later, he was named director of the newly established Max Planck Institute for Cell Chemistry. At a time when other universities were attempting to coax Lynen away from Munich, this position ensured that he would stay.
In addition to elucidating the role of acetyl-coenzyme A, Lynen's research revealed the importance of many other chemicals in the body. One of the most significant of these was his work with the vitamin biotin. In the late 1950s, Lynen demonstrated that biotin was needed for the production of fat.
Lynen and Bloch shared the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology in 1964, largely because the Nobel Committee recognized the medical importance of their work. Medical authorities knew that an accumulation of cholesterol in the walls of arteries and in blood contributed to diseases of the circulatory system, including arteriosclerosis, heart attacks, and strokes. In its tribute to Lynen and Bloch, the Nobel Committee noted that a more complete understanding of the metabolism of sterols and fatty acids promised to reveal the possible role of cholesterol in heart disease. Any future research into the link between cholesterol and heart disease, the Nobel committee observed, would have to be based on the findings of Lynen and Bloch.
In 1972, Lynen moved to the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, which had just recently been founded. Between 1974 and 1976, Lynen was acting director of the Institute. He continued to oversee a lab at the University of Munich, however.
In 1976, on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday, more than eighty of Lynen's friends, students, and colleagues contributed essays to a book, Die aktivierte Essigsäure und ihre Folgen, in which they described their relationship with Lynen. They celebrated Lynen as a renowned scientist and a proud Bavarian. The author of over three hundred scholarly pieces, Lynen was also praised as a hard-working man who expected much of himself and his students. Six weeks after an aneurism operation, Lynen died on August 6, 1979.
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