Biography of Michel-Beyerle
As a professor of physical chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, Maria-Elisabeth Michel-Beyerle was particularly interested in biological processes of charge transfer. She thus contributed to elucidating the structure of the photosynthetic reaction centre.
Maria-Elisabeth Michel-Beyerle was born in Kiel on 20 August 1935. Her father, Konrad Beyerle (1900–1979), was an engineer and is known for developing a gas centrifuge for isotope separation. After completing her Abitur, Michel-Beyerle studied chemistry at the Georg-August University of Göttingen from 1955 to 1957. She interrupted her studies for a research stay at Columbia University in New York (USA) as a scholarship holder of the Atomic Energy Commission, and subsequently continued studying chemistry at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich.
During her Diplom thesis, she conducted research from 1960 to 1962 at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the RWTH Aachen University. She received her doctorate there in 1964 with her doctoral thesis “On the electrochemistry of indium”.
From 1965 to 1974, Michel-Beyerle worked as a research assistant at the Institute of physical chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), in the working group of Heinz Gerischer (1919–1994), a recognised expert in electrochemistry and doctoral supervisor of Nobel laureate Gerhard Ertl (born 1936). In 1974, Michel-Beyerle obtained her habilitation in chemistry at TUM, and in 1980 she was appointed extraordinary professor of physical chemistry there.
Michel-Beyerle was fascinated by charge transfer in biological systems, particularly in plant chloroplasts. In 1981, she initiated a collaborative research centre at TUM dedicated to the elementary processes of photosynthesis. Michel-Beyerle made an important contribution to the isolation and X-ray structural analysis of the photosynthetic reaction centre, for which Johann Deisenhofer (born 1943), Robert Huber (born 1937) and Hartmut Michel (born 1948) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988.
Even after her retirement in 2000, Michel-Beyerle remained active in science. From 2003 to 2007, for example, she coordinated the EU research programme “Control of assembly and charge transport dynamics of immobilized DNA”. In 2008, she took up a visiting professorship at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Michel-Beyerle’s successful career as a researcher is documented by 170 publications bearing her name. She also received numerous awards. In 2000, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany; in 2006, the Bavarian Maximilian Order, the highest honour of the Free State of Bavaria for outstanding achievements in science and the arts; in 2009, the Bavarian Constitutional Medal in Silver (2009); and in 2013, the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Medal.
Maria-Elisabeth Michel-Beyerle remains active in science. At the time this biography was written, she was embarking on an extended research stay in the USA.
Literature
Women at the Technical University of Munich, brochure published on the occasion of the Liesel Beckmann Symposium, 2007, editor: Institute for Advanced Science Prof. W. A. Herrmann
www.emeriti-of-excellence.tum.de/eoe/a-z/maria-elisabeth-michel-beyerle/
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria-Elisabeth_Michel-Beyerle
Authors
Prof. Dr. Eberhard Ehlers
Prof. Dr. Heribert Offermanns
Editorial work
Dr. Uta Neubauer
Project management
Dr. Karin J. Schmitz (GDCh-public relations)
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