Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat

Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat
Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat
Born	(1910-07-29)July 29, 1910 Breslau, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland)
Died	April 10, 1999(1999-04-10) (aged 88) Oakland, California, U.S.
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	University of Breslau, University of Edinburgh
Known for	Tobacco Mosaic Virus
Awards	Lasker Award (1958)
Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley
Thesis	Alkaloids of solanum pseudocapsicum

Heinz Ludwig Fraenkel-Conrat (July 29, 1910 – April 10, 1999) was a biochemist, famous for his research on viruses.

Early life

Fraenkel-Conrat was born in Breslau, Germany.

He was the son of Lili Conrat and Professor Ludwig Fraenkel, director of the Women's Clinic of the University of Breslau. His father was a prominent gynecologist and medical researcher who published regarding endocrine function, social gynecology, and sexology during the first decades of the 20th century, and was one of many scientists summarily dismissed from their positions by the Nazis.

Academic career

He received an MD from the University of Breslau in 1933. Due to the rise of Nazism in Germany he left for Scotland in 1933 and finished his PhD at the University of Edinburgh (1936). After completing his doctorate, he emigrated to the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1941. In the 1940s Fraenkel-Conrat visited his sister and brother-in-law, biochemist Karl Slotta, a pioneer in the study of progesterone, estriol, and medical use of venom, who was then director of the Chemical Institute of the Instituto Butantan in São Paulo, Brazil, from 1935 to 1948. Frankel-Conrat remained for one year of biochemical research at the Instituto Butantan. He worked at a number of institutes before joining the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1952 where he remained until his death.

His most noted research was on the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and the holmes ribgrass virus (HRV). He was described by a colleague as "one of the pioneers in the early days of virology with (his work on) the tobacco mosaic virus." He discovered that the genetic control of viral reproduction was RNA and that it is carried in the nucleic core of each virus. In 1955 he and biophysicist Robley Williams showed that a functional virus could be created out of purified RNA and a protein coat. In 1960 he announced the complete sequencing of the 158 amino acids in the virus.

Death

He died of lung failure on April 10, 1999, at the Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, at the age of eighty-eight.

Further reading

• Fraenkel-Conrat, H (1994), "Early days of protein chemistry", FASEB J., vol. 8, no. 6 (published Apr 1, 1994), pp. 452–453, doi:10.1096/fasebj.8.6.8168696, PMID 8168696, S2CID 9137540
• Rovery, M; Desnuelle, P (1954), "Application comparée de la technique de Sanger et de la technique d'Edman-Fraenkel Conrat à la détermination des résidus N-terminaux des protéines (Comparative application of the Sanger technique and the Edman-Fraenkel-Conrat technique in the determination of the N-terminal residues of proteins)", Bulletin de la Société de Chimie biologique, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 95–108, PMID 13160741