Maria-Regina Kula (born 16 March 1937) is an inventor. She was one of the two prize winners of the German Future Prize in 2002. Also in 2002, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the understanding and practice of enzyme-based chemical processes and protein separations.
Awarded by the President of Germany, and worth 250,000 euros, [1] the prize helps to identify projects which are of high scientific value and, more importantly, have concrete applications and are already developed to a point of readiness for commercial applications. Kula was awarded the prize as a leading developer of inexpensive biocatalysts through the use of genetically opimised enzymes. Together with her co-researcher, Martina Pohl, she successfully isolated formate dehydrogenase (FDH) from the yeast "Candida boidinii", enabling manufacturers to develop and produce new drugs and other chemical products on a large scale in a way which is both environmentally sound and cost-effective. [2] [3] [4]
Maria-Regina Kula was born in Berlin. Between 1956 and 1960 she studied Chemistry in East Berlin and Munich. It was from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich that in 1962 she received her doctorate of natural sciences. [5] She was employed as a research associate at Munich University's Institute of Anorganic Chemistry ("Institut für Molekulare Enzymtechnologie" / IMET) between 1962 and 1964.
She was based in Baltimore between 1964 and 1967, sponsored by the DFG at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for a two-year training fellowship, followed by time as a "postdoc". [3] During 1968 and 1969 she worked as a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen. [5] [7] She then worked till 1985 as head of department with the Society for Research in Molecular Biology ("Gesellschaft für Molekularbiologische Forschung" - today renamed as the "Heimholz Centre for Infection Research / "Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung"" / HZI) in Braunschweig. [8] She also served as this institution's Scientific Director between 1975 and 1979. [8] It was in 1979 that she received her Habilitation (high academic qualification) from the Bio-chemistry Faculty at the Technical University of Braunschweig, opening the way to a broadened range of career progression options in the mainstream universities sector. [5]
In 1986 she moved west, taking a position as a professor and director of the Institute of Enzyme Technology at the University of Düsseldorf. Her role combined research and teaching. She retired from her university post in 2002. [5]
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(October 2020) |
Wolfgang Wahlster is a German Artificial Intelligence researcher. He was CEO and Scientific Director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and full professor of computer science at Saarland University, Saarbrücken. Wahlster remains Chief Executive Advisor of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. In May 2019, he was honored by the Gesellschaft für Informatik as one of 10 most important heads of German Artificial Intelligence history. He is sometimes called the inventor of the "Industry 4.0" term.
Frank Henry Westheimer was an American chemist. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1954, and at Harvard University from 1953 to 1983, becoming the Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry in 1960, and Professor Emeritus in 1983. The Westheimer medal was established in his honor in 2002.
Marjory Stephenson was a British biochemist. In 1945, she was one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the other being Kathleen Lonsdale.
The Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces is located in Potsdam-Golm Science Park in Golm, Potsdam, Germany. It was founded in 1990 as a successor of the Institute for Physical Chemistry and for Organic Chemistry, both in Berlin-Adlershof, and for Polymer Chemistry in Teltow. In 1999, it transferred to newly constructed extension facilities in Golm. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft).
Stefan Walter Hell HonFRMS is a Romanian-German physicist and one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy", together with Eric Betzig and William Moerner.
Dame Lynn Faith Gladden is the Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. She served as Pro-vice-chancellor for research from 2010 to 2016.
Frances Hamilton Arnold is an American chemical engineer and Nobel Laureate. She is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering the use of directed evolution to engineer enzymes. .
Heinz Maier-Leibnitz was a German physicist. He made contributions to nuclear spectroscopy, coincidence measurement techniques, radioactive tracers for biochemistry and medicine, and neutron optics. He was an influential educator and an advisor to the Federal Republic of Germany on nuclear programs.
Aleida Assmann is a German professor of English and Literary Studies, who studied Egyptology and whose work has focused on cultural anthropology and Cultural and Communicative Memory.
Martin Stratmann is a German electrochemist and materials scientist. He is one of the directors at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf since 2000 and heads its department of Interface Chemistry and Surface Engineering.
Jyeshtharaj Bhalchandra Joshi is an Indian chemical engineer, nuclear scientist, consultant and professor, widely known for his innovations in nuclear reactor designs and generally regarded as a respected teacher. He is the DAE-Homi Bhabha Chair Professor, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai, and is the recipient of Shantiswarup Bhatnagar Prize for Engineering Sciences and many other awards and recognitions. He received the third highest civilian honour, the Padma Bhushan, in 2014 for his services to the field of chemical engineering and nuclear science.
Javier Pérez-Ramírez is a Professor of Catalysis and Chemical Engineering at ETH Zurich.
Katja Becker is a German physician and biochemist who has been serving as the president of the German Research Foundation (DFG since 2020. She had previously been the organization's vice president from 2014-2019.
Anja Maria-Antonia Karliczek is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Minister of Education and Research in Chancellor Angela Merkel's fourth cabinet since 14 March 2018.
Maki Kawai is a Japanese chemist who developed spatially selective single-molecule spectroscopy. In 2018, she became the first woman to become president of the Chemical Society of Japan.
Annette Werner is a German mathematician. Her research interests include diophantine geometry and the algebraic geometry of non-Archimedean ordered fields, including the study of buildings, Berkovich spaces, and tropical geometry. She is a professor of mathematics at Goethe University Frankfurt.
Bettina Valeska Lotsch is a German chemist. She is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany.
Christine Lang is a German microbiologist and entrepreneur.
Sandra Ciesek is a German physician and virologist. She is the director of the Institute of Medical Virology at the Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt and professor of medical virology at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Her main areas of research include new forms of therapy for hepatitis C and, more recently, the search for drugs against COVID-19.
Wolfgang Arlt is a German thermodynamicist. Until his retirement in 2018, he was professor at the TU Berlin and since 2004 at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
