Lectinology

See Also

German immunologist and aphorist.

Born 1929.

Professor Dr. med. Gerhard Uhlenbruck completed training in immunbiology in London and Cambridge after medical study and was a department manager at the Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research in Cologne. He is currently a director of the Institute for Immunbiology at the University of Cologne.

Aphorisms

• "Men divided the atom first, but now the atom divides men."
• "Although most humans do, what they want, want the few that they do."
• "No Body is perfect."
• "Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death."

Discussion

Professor Uhlenbruck established the chemical structure of the T antigen in 1969 at the University of Cologne. Like many pioneers he entered the field of lectin research by chance:

"The reason why I have begun to study lectins in 1960 was an economical one: there were no means and money, no personnel and possibilities to work with animals.Accordingly I became the first professor of immunobiology in the the world, who never immunized an animal. However, plants were easily available, for instance peanuts, and so we analyzed our red cell glycoprotiens, first described in 1958 by us, with various plant lectins. One result was the structure of the peanut agglutinin receptor." (1)

In recent years has developed an interest in complementary medicine (2)

Citations