ERLICH Paul

March 14, 1854 r, - August 20, 1915
German pharmacologist and immunologist Paul Ehrlich was born in Strehlene (now - Strzelin, Poland), in a Jewish family. His parents were wealthy innkeeper Ismar Ehrlich and Ehrlich Rosa (Weigert). Many relatives of the family engaged in science. In the interests of Paul's early childhood was influenced by his grandfather from his father, a lecturer in physics and botany at local schools. However, a decisive role in choosing their career, played his cousin, Carl Weigert.
Weigert was a bacteriologist, he was one of the first to use aniline dyes, discovered in 1853, for the manufacture of micropreparations. These substances were given the opportunity to carry out selective staining, ie. paint certain elements of fabrics, only slightly accumulate (or did not accumulate at all) in other. Under the guidance of his cousin E. studied the ability of color to connect with different structures. In 1876, Mr.. He read a book on the distribution of lead in the bodies of poisoned animals, which caused his interest in what he later called 'the nature and method of distribution of substances in the body and its cells'.
In 1872, Mr.. E. enrolled in the University of Breslau (now - the Polish city of Wroclaw). But after one semester there, he moved to the University of Strasbourg, where he showed his great ability to chemistry, although formally it is not doing it. Two years later he returned to Breslau and performed here the bulk of the work required to obtain medical diploma, which he handed to the University of Leipzig in 1878
. During these years, E., has the amazing ability of three-dimensional vision of chemical structures, developed a new dye with specific affinity for different cells
. Through this work he created a way of distinguishing different forms of white blood cells, and this discovery played a critical role in the development of Hematology (in m. h. study of leukemia), and Immunology. After receiving medical diploma E. was appointed chief physician clinics Friedrich von Frerihsa Berlin's Charite Hospital here continued hematologic studies.
Berlin E. improved staining techniques, extending them to the bacteria and animal tissues. When in 1882 Mr.. Robert Koch announced the discovery of TB bacillus, E. offered him an improved method of coloring in the main, this method is used to this day. Three years later, E. published work 'body's need for oxygen' ( "The Oxygen Need of Organisms"), which formulated the theory of side chains of cells. 'Living protoplasm should correspond to the giant molecules interacting with ordinary chemical molecules as the sun with tiny meteorites - wrote E. - We can assume that in the living protoplasm of the nucleus with a special structure responsible for the specific characteristic of cell functions and to the nucleus are connected like the side chains of atoms and their complexes. "
In 1885, Mr.. Frerihs died, and his successor, Karl Gerhard without much sympathy for the E Research. In 1888. E. during a laboratory experiment, contracted tuberculosis and his family went for treatment in Egypt. Here he lived for nearly two years. Returning to Berlin, E. learned that his position at the Charite hospital busy. For some time he worked in their own laboratories, while Koch could not find for him the post of first municipal hospital in Moab, and then at the Institute of Infectious Diseases. Working under the guidance of Koch, E. continued research in the field of immunology. He found that antibodies in mammals can be transmitted from mother's milk, and it creates a passive immunity to offspring. The Institute of Infectious Diseases, he worked together with Emil von Behring, a scientist who discovered antitoxins. Bering experienced difficulties with production of diphtheria antitoxin in sufficient quantities. In this regard, E. developed a method in which the horses to re-enter diphtheria toxin, has not yet received the necessary concentration of antitoxin. In 1896, Mr.. E. was appointed director of the National Institute of design and control sera in Steglitz (a suburb of Berlin). Here he used his knowledge in the field of chemistry for the standardization of toxins, and antitoxin serum. He developed a system of international units is widespread and still common today.
In 1899. Institute for the development and control sera was expanded and transferred to Frankfurt. At this time, E. published its final conclusions on the application of the theory of side chains in immunology. Follow the directions, which he developed in work on the oxygen requirements of organisms, E. emphasized that the antibodies can be shaped not only by direct chemical interactions between the toxins (or other antigens) and cells. Because the antibodies are similar to some of the nutrients, they may react with receptors on the surface of cells, a result of cell begins to produce such receptors that interact with toxins in the blood. Consequently, in the role of antibodies may make receptors (or, in the terminology E., reactive side chains) cells, which interact with antigens.
. Theory side chains had a great influence on the development of science, although only a few scientists agree with it completely
. The most important achievement of E. consisted in the fact that he presented the interaction between cells, antibodies and antigens as the chemical reaction. This approach to the theory of immunity was the impetus for numerous studies, as was the working hypothesis, to be specific verification. helped to establish the immunological terminology.
In 1908, Mr.. Ehrlich, together with Ilya Mechnikov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his work on the theory of immunity '. In his Nobel lecture E. expressed confidence that scientists began to 'understand the mechanism of action of therapeutic agents ..,'. 'I also hope - he went on - that, if these areas will be systematically developed, soon we will become easier than ever before, to develop rational ways of synthesis of drugs'.
Two years after the awarding of the Nobel Prize E. received grants for the construction of laboratories for the development of therapeutic agents. As Director of the Research Institute of chemotherapy E. set out to create a derivative of arsenic that can be an effective tool against trypanosomes - microorganisms that cause sleeping sickness and other diseases, and treponema pallidum - the causative agent of syphilis. In 1910,. after testing 606 compounds Ehrlich announced the opening of a means to cure syphilis. This is a substance containing arsenic, which he called salvarsan, has an active effect on treponema pallidum, but not have a toxic effect on the patient.
. The emergence of salvarsan was widely welcomed, although the substance was later criticized by researchers who found that, when it is assigned in insufficient doses, spirochete become immune to it
. After further research E. in 1912. developed a modified version of the drug - neosalvarsan. This highly efficient drug soon became widespread, and E. - Universal acceptance.
In 1883, Mr.. E. married Hedwig Pinkus, daughter of a manufacturer-textile. In the family they had two daughters. At leisure E. loved to read detective novels of Arthur Conan milked. E. was warmly enthusiastic researcher, spends long hours in the laboratory, often forget to even eat. In his later years he suffered from heart disease. E. grieved passions that erupted around salvarsan, and the war raging in Europe, and August 20, 1915, resting in Bad Homburg, he died of apoplexy.
E. been awarded many prizes, including an honorary prize at the International Medical Congress (1906), medals Leybiga Germanskogo Chemical Society (1911), Cameron Prize and an honorary lecturer at the University of Edinburgh (1914). He was a member of 81 scientific societies and academies of different countries and the holder of honorary degrees University of Chicago, Goettingen, Oxford, Breslau and others