- Leonor Michaelis
Leonor Michaelis (
January 16 ,1875 –October 8 ,1949 ) was a Germanbiochemist andphysician famous for his work withMaud Menten inenzyme kinetics andMichaelis-Menten kinetics .Born in
Berlin (Germany ), he studiedmedicine inFreiburg , where he graduated in 1897. He then moved toBerlin , where he received his doctorate the same year. Michaelis worked as assistant toPaul Ehrlich (1898–1899),Moritz Litten (1899–1902) andErnst Viktor von Leyden (1902–1906). In 1906 he started as director of the bacteriology lab inBerlin sCharité hospital, becoming Professor extraordinary atBerlin University in 1908.In 1914 he published a paper suggesting that
Emil Abderhalden 's notorious pregnancy tests could not be reproduced, a paper which fatally compromised Michaelis' position as an academic in Germany (L. Michaelis, L von Lagermark, Deutsche Med. Wochenschr. 1914, 7, 316-319). In 1922 he moved to the Medical School of the University of Nagoya (Japan ) as Professor ofbiochemistry , in 1926 toJohns Hopkins University inBaltimore, Maryland as resident lecturer in medicalresearch and in 1929 to theRockefeller Institute of Medical Research inNew York City , where he retired in 1941.Besides his role in the formulation of the Michaelis-Menten equation (1913) he discovered
Janus green as asupravital stain formitochondria and theMichaelis-Gutmann body inurinary tract infection s (1902) and found thatthioglycolic acid could dissolvekeratin , making him the father of thepermanent wave . He died inNew York City .
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