Spring 2012
This semester we are pleased to have Peter M.H. Kroneck as the Noyce distinguished visiting professor.
Peter M.H. Kroneck
The short course "Metals and Life: Nature’s Coordination Chemistry" addressed various aspects of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, such as Basic Coordination Chemistry of Transition Metals, Physical Techniques to investigate Metals in Biology, Activation and Transformation of Oxygen by Iron and Copper Enzymes, Global Cycles of Nitrogen and Sulfur and their Metal Enzymes, Life without Oxygen and Early Life Catalysts, as well as Metals in Medicine and their Application in Diagnosis and Therapy. In addition, students worked in the laboratory and applied UV/Vis spectroscopy to study the properties of the iron centers of cytochrome c and Myoglobin. Furthermore, they investigated the interaction of a Manganese biomimetic complex with the Xanthine/Xanthine Oxidase superoxide generating system.
About Peter M.H. Kroneck
Peter Kroneck received his Diploma in Chemistry (1968) from the University of Basel (Switzerland) and his PhD (1971) from the University of Konstanz. He worked as a postdoctoral student with JackT. Spence (Utah State University, Logan), and he was a visiting professor with Helmut Beinert (University of Wisconsin-Madison), with Israel Pecht (Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot), and with William E. Antholine (National EPR Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee). Peter Kroneck was the head of the Bioinorganic Research Group at the University of Konstanz, where he became a Professor of Biochemistry in 1989. In 2002 he received the Medal of the European Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, and in 2009 he was the first Non-US scientist who chaired the Gordon Research Conference “Metals in Biology”. His group's research activities have focused mainly on structural and spectroscopic properties of copper, iron, and molybdenum enzymes and their functional roles in the biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and sulfur. Most recently, in collaboration with microbiologist Walter Zumft (University of Karlsruhe) and structural biologist Oliver Einsle (University of Freiburg) the three-dimensional structure of the copper-sulfur enzyme nitrous oxide (“Laughing Gas” reductase has been unraveled (published in Nature, 2011) which was also the topic of a seminar given during the course.
