AKA Hans Karl Heinrich Adolf Lohmann

Born: 10-Apr-1898
Birthplace: Bielefeld, Germany
Died: 22-Apr-1978
Location of death: Berlin, Germany
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Chemist, Doctor

Nationality: Germany
Executive summary: Discovered ATP

Military service: German Army (1917-19)

German biochemist Karl Lohmann discovered adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the key source of energy in all living things, in 1929. He isolated ATP from muscle and liver extracts, and originally called his discovery "inosinic acid". He worked for several years under Otto Meyerhof, Nobel laureate for his elucidation of the glycogen-lactic acid cycle, but Lohmann never received Nobel honors himself — a curious oversight, since his discovery was a major development in early biochemistry, and is virtually synonymous with biochemical energy.

Lohmann also discovered cocarboxylase, now known as thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) or thiamine diphosphate (ThDP), a vitamin B1 derivative produced by thiamine pyrophosphatase. In 1935, in a phenomenon still known as the Lohmann reaction, he found that ATP and creatine phosphate (PCr) are held in equilibrium by creatine kinase. During his nation's Nazi era and the subsequent communist era that lasted until after his death, he joined neither the Nazi nor Communist parties. He retired in 1964, and died fourteen years later. He is the namesake of the Karl Lohmann Prize, awarded by the German Society for Biological Chemistry.

    University: PhD Chemistry, University of Göttingen (1924)
    Medical School: MD, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physiology (1935)
    Teacher: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biology, Berlin (1924-30)
    Professor: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physiology (1930-37)
    Professor: Physiological Chemistry, Humboldt University of Berlin (1937-52)
    Administrator: Institute of Medicine and Biology, Humboldt University of Berlin (1947-61)
    Administrator: Dean, Humboldt University of Berlin (1948-61)
    Administrator: Institute of Biochemistry (1961-64)

    National Prize of the German Democratic Republic 1951
    Patriotic Order of Merit 1958
    Helmholtz Medal 1978 (awarded by the German Academy of Science)
    German Academy of Science 1949
    German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
    German Society for Biological Chemistry
    Scientific Council of Worker Health 1944
    German Ancestry

Author of books:
Anleitung zum Physiologischchemischen Praktikum (1948, chemistry)

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