Joachim Seelig | |
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![]() Joachim Seelig (2012) | |
Born | |
Nationality | German |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physical chemist |
Institutions | University of Cologne, Biozentrum University of Basel |
Joachim Heinrich Seelig (born 29 March 1942) [1] is a German physical chemist and specialist in NMR Spectroscopy. He is one of the founding fathers of the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. [2] He reached emeritus status in 2012. [3]
Joachim Seelig studied chemistry and physics from 1961 till 1966 at the University of Cologne. In 1968 he graduated with a doctorate under the guidance of Manfred Eigen at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. As a postdoc he conducted research on electron spin resonance at Stanford University in 1968/69. In 1970 he moved as a postdoc to the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Basel where he became a group leader and assistant professor in 1972. He became full professor in 1974 and in 1982 Professor of Structural Biology at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. [4]
Joachim Seelig developed biophysical methods for studying the structure and thermodynamic properties of biological cell membranes. [5] He investigated the interactions of proteins and lipids by EPR-spectroscopy, deuterium and phosphorus nuclear magnetic resonance, neutron diffraction and calorimetric methods. [6] The quantitative characterization of the biological membrane became the international standard for further theoretical studies. His second field of research was magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in the human and animals. [7] With C-13 NMR the metabolism in the human and animal brain could be traced in a non-invasive manner. With faster MRI imaging techniques the tonotopy of the human brain has been described.
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Herbert Sander Gutowsky was an American chemist who was a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Gutowsky was the first to apply nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods to the field of chemistry. He used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine the structure of molecules. His pioneering work developed experimental control of NMR as a scientific instrument, connected experimental observations with theoretical models, and made NMR one of the most effective analytical tools for analysis of molecular structure and dynamics in liquids, solids, and gases, used in chemical and medical research, His work was relevant to the solving of problems in chemistry, biochemistry, and materials science, and has influenced many of the subfields of more recent NMR spectroscopy.
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