Johann Deisenhofer

Johann Deisenhofer was born on September 30, 1943 in Zusamaltheim, Bavaria, Germany, German, is Biochemist. Johann Deisenhofer is a German biochemist known for determining the three-dimensional structure of the photosynthetic reaction centre. For the same, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988. He shared the prize with Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel. Deisenhofer’s discovery of the structure was revolutionary as it augmented the general understanding of the mechanisms of photosynthesis and revealed similarities between the photosynthetic processes of plants and bacteria. His experience in the application of X-ray technology as a tool to analyse the structure of crystallized substances resulted in the first-ever mapping of the structure of those molecules involved in the chemical reaction integral to the conversion process. Interestingly, Deisenhofer’s fancy with the physical world commenced when he was a child. Much against the wishes of his farmer parents who deemed farming as a future for their son, Deisenhofer expressed his interest in academics. He was fascinated by the astronomical problems and the physical world and soon found his real calling in physics. During his graduation studies he drifted to biophysics, an upcoming genre of physics then. His most important work came in the decade of 1980s when he worked at the Max Planck Institute. Currently, Deisehofer lives in United States and serves as a professor at the Department of Biophysics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
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