Hans Adolf Krebs

Infobox Scientist
name = Hans Adolf Krebs


birth_date = birth date|1900|8|25
birth_place = Hildesheim, Germany
nationality = Germany / United Kingdom
death_date = death date and age| 1981|11|22|1900|8|25
death_place = Oxford, England
field = Biochemistry
workplace = Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology
University of Sheffield
alma_mater = University of Hamburg
known_for = discovery of the urea cycle and the citric acid cycle
prizes = Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1953)

Hans Adolf Krebs (August 25, 1900 – November 22, 1981) was a German, later British medical doctor and biochemist. Krebs is best known for his identification of two important metabolic cycles: the urea cycle and the citric acid cycle. The latter, the key sequence of metabolic chemical reactions that produces energy in cells, is also known as the "Krebs cycle" and earned him a Nobel Prize in 1953.

Biography

He was born in Hildesheim, Germany, to Alma and Georg Krebs. His father, Georg, was an ear, nose, and throat surgeon. Hans went to school in Hildesheim and studied medicine at the University of Göttingen and at the University of Freiburg from 1918–1923. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Hamburg in 1925, then studied chemistry in Berlin for one year, where he later became an assistant of Otto Warburg at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology until 1930. He then returned to clinical medicine at the municipal hospital of Altona and then at the medical clinic of the University of Freiburg, where he conducted research and discovered the urea cycle.

Because he was Jewish, he was barred from practicing medicine in Germany and he emigrated to England in 1933. He was invited to Cambridge, where he worked in the biochemistry department under Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861–1947). Krebs became professor of biochemistry at the University of Sheffield in 1945.Krebs' area of interest was intermediary metabolism. He identified the urea cycle in 1932, and the citric acid cycle in 1937.

In 1953 he was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his "discovery of the citric acid cycle."

He was elected Honorary Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge University in 1979. Krebs died in Oxford, England in 1981.His son, John, Lord Krebs, is also a distinguished scientist.

Timeline

*1900 Born in Germany
*1918 Began medical school
*1923 Graduated from medical school
*1925 Graduated with Ph.D. from University of Hamburg
*1932 Identification of Urea Cycle
*1933 Emigration to the United Kingdom
*1937 Identification of Citric Acid Cycle or "Krebs Cycle"
*1945 Became a Professor at University of Sheffield
*1953 Won the Nobel Prize in Medicine
*1958 Knighted
*1981 Died in the United Kingdom

References

*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Weber
first=G
authorlink=
year=2001
month=
title=Sir Hans A. Krebs Centenary Lecture: cancer and clinical targeting
journal=Adv. Enzyme Regul.
volume=41
issue=
pages=1–29
pmid = 11417529
doi=10.1016/S0065-2571(00)00026-1
*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Stubbs
first=M
authorlink=
coauthors=Gibbons G
year=2000
month=Sep
title=Hans Adolf Krebs (1900-1981)...his life and times
journal=IUBMB Life
volume=50
issue=3
pages=163–6
pmid = 11142342
doi=10.1080/152165400300001462
*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Raju
first=T N
authorlink=
year=1999
month=May
title=The Nobel chronicles. 1953: Hans Adolf Krebs (1900-81) and Fritz Albert Lipmann (1899-1986)
journal=Lancet
volume=353
issue=9164
pages=1628
pmid = 10334294
doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(05)75758-5
*Sri Kantha, S: The question of nepotism in the award of Nobel prizes; a critique of the view of Hans Krebs. "Medical Hypotheses", 1991; 34: 28-32.

External links

* [http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1953/krebs-bio.html Biography]
* [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1953/ 1953 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]