Buchner (Buchner), Edward

May 20, 1860, Mr.. - August 13, 1917
German chemist Eduard Buchner was born in Munich, the son of a professor of forensic medicine and Gynecology, University of Munich Ernst Buchner and Frederick (Martin) Buchner, daughter of an employee of the Royal Treasury. After his father's death in 1872. Edward was engaged in the formation of his older brother, Hans. After graduating in Munich, in 1877. Realschule, B. for a short time he served in field artillery unit Germanic army before enrolled in the Technical University of Munich, where he began to study chemistry. However, financial difficulties forced him to leave school and four years of work at a canning factory in Munich and Mombahe. While work and forced to suspend classes, she became acquainted with the process of alcoholic fermentation, which resulted in the sugar under the action of yeast breaks down into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
With the help of his brother Hans B. able in 1884. resume classes. Shortly thereafter, he received a three-year scholarship. He studied chemistry under Adolf von Baeyer at Munich University and the botanist Carl von Naegeli at the Institute of Botany. The Institute's brother worked as a scientist, Hans Buchner, who later became well-known expert on hygiene and bacteriology. B. began investigating the process of alcoholic fermentation under his leadership. In 1885, Mr.. He published his first article on the effect of oxygen on the fermentation process. Realized B. experiments refuted was common at the time point of view, which adhered to and Louis Pasteur that fermentation can not take place in the presence of oxygen.
In 1888. B. received his doctorate and two years later, after a brief period, held in Erlangen, he became an assistant Bayer. In 1891, Mr.. B. was appointed Assistant Professor (Visiting Professor), University of Munich. Private donations, provided by Bayer, B. founded a small laboratory, where he continued his studies in the chemistry of fermentation. In 1893, Mr.. He left Munich and headed the section of analytical chemistry at the University of Kiel, and in 1895. became a professor of the university. The following year, B. taught analytical chemistry and pharmacology, University of Tц?bingen. In 1898, Mr.. He was elected professor of general chemistry of the Higher Agricultural School in Berlin and was appointed director of the Institute of Industrial use of fermentation processes.
In 1893, when B. began to search for active substances that promote fermentation, dominated the two rival theories of fermentation. According to the mechanistic theory, yeast is constantly decomposing into liquid form, create a chemical stress, which causes the molecule to decompose sugar. In accordance with this view, alcoholic fermentation was a while complicated, but, in general, the normal chemical reaction. Against this theory argued vitalists, who, like Louis Pasteur, believed that in living cells contain some vital substance that and 'responsible' for unrest. In their view, without some kind of 'life', although not yet found, a component in living cells alone the chemicals could have caused the fermentation process. Although proponents of the mechanistic theories have proved that the substances found in living cells, can be synthesized, no one has yet managed to identify a substance that promotes fermentation, or cause the process to non-living substances.
. Encourages his brother, B
. decided to find the active substance by obtaining pure samples of the liquid inside the yeast cells. Using the method proposed by an assistant of his brother Martin Hahn, B. milled in a mortar and yeast together with sand and earth, thus avoiding the destructive effects of high temperatures and without using solvents, which distorted the results obtained by his predecessors. Pressed in gauze under pressure from the cellular substance released liquid. B. suggested that this fluid can ferment. Later, however, when he and Hahn tried to keep the liquid, adding a concentrated solution of sucrose, separated carbon dioxide. It was amazing, because, despite the fact that yeast cells were dead, it was clear that something in their selected fluid caused unrest. B. hypothesized that the active substance is an enzyme, or enzyme, which he called Zymase. His discovery meant that the fermentation is the result of the chemical activity of the enzyme, both inside and outside the yeast cells, but not under the influence of the so-called life force.
Published in 1897. Work B. 'On the alcoholic fermentation without yeast cells' ( "On Alcoholic Fermentation without Yeast Cells") has caused controversy among his fellow scientists, and in subsequent years B. spent a lot of time to gather facts to support his theory. In 1902, Mr.. he published another article of 15 pages, which explain and defend this their work, as well as several others, setting out the results of its research on the chemical action of yeast in the milk sugar.
In 1907, Mr.. B. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 'for them carried out research work on biological chemistry and the discovery of the extracellular fermentation'. Because of the death of King Oscar II of Sweden awards ceremony was postponed, but in a written submission on behalf of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to. A. X. Merner summarized conflicting views on the process of fermentation, which ended conducted B. study. 'While the unrest was seen as an expression of life - wrote Merner, - there was little hope for an opportunity to penetrate more deeply into the problem which this process'. That's why 'there was a sensation when B. succeeded in showing that alcoholic fermentation can be caused by juice, isolated from yeast cells, which do not contain living cells ... Unavailable until that time the area is now the object of chemical research, and before the chemical science has discovered new, previously unseen perspective '.
In his Nobel lecture B. described his discovery and paid tribute to predecessors and colleagues. 'We are increasingly convinced that the cells of plants and animals are like chemical factories, - he said - where the shops are made in various different products. Enzymes in them serve as supervisors. Our knowledge about these most important parts of living matter is constantly increasing. Although perhaps we are far from objective, we step by step closer to her '.
Two years after receiving the Nobel Prize B. went to work in the University of Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), where he became chair of physiological chemistry. His last academic appointment was the appointment in the University of Wц?rzburg in 1911. Since the beginning of World War II B. voluntarily went into military service. In 1917, working in the rank of major medical services in a field hospital in Romania, he was wounded by shrapnel and died in Focsani August 13, survived his wife, Lot (Stahl) Buchner, daughter of mathematics in Tц?bingen. From this marriage, concluded in 1900, they had two sons and a daughter