- German chemist
who researched the process of fermentation. In 1897 he observed that
fermentation could be produced mechanically, by cell-free extracts.
Buchner argued that it was not the whole yeast cell that produced
fermentation, but only the presence of the enzyme he named zymase.
Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1907.
Buchner was born and educated in Munich, and held a number of academic
posts in Germany from 1888. He was killed by a grenade in World War
I.
Buchner had been interested in the problems of alcoholic fermentation
since the 1880s, and showed 1886 that the absence of oxygen was not
necessary for fermentation, but his discovery of zymase came about
by accident. In 1893 Buchner and his brother Hans Buchner (1850-1902,
a bacteriologist) found a way to make a cell-free liquid extract of
microorganisms. They were using a yeast extract for pharmaceutical
studies and added a thick sugar syrup to stop any bacterial action.
Buchner fully expected the sugar to act as a preservative, but it
had the opposite effect and carbon dioxide was produced. The sugar
had fermented, producing carbon dioxide and alcohol, in the same way
as if whole yeast cells had been present.
It was soon realized that the conversion of sugar into alcohol by
means of yeast juice is a series of stepwise reactions, and that zymase
is really a mixture of several enzymes.
|