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Manfred Eigen (born May 9, 1927 ) is a German biophysicist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions.

Career

He received his PhD at the University of Göttingen and has been former director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. He is an honorary doctor of the TU Braunschweig. From 1982 to 1993, Eigen was president of the German National Merit Foundation.

In 1967, Eigen was awarded, along with Ronald George Wreyford Norrish and George Porter, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They were distinguished for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions induced in response to very short pulses of energy.

In addition, Eigen's name is linked with the theory of the chemical hypercycle, the cyclic linkage of reaction cycles as an explanation for the self organization of prebiotic systems, which he described with Peter Schuster in 1979. Eigen is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

See also

• Quasispecies model

Bibliography

• Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster The Hypercycle: A principle of natural self-organization, 1979, Springer ISBN 0-387-09293-5
• Manfred Eigen, Ruthild Winkler: The Laws of the Game: How The Principles of Nature Govern Chance, 1993, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-02566-5
• Manfred Eigen, "Molekulare Selbstorganisation und Evolution." (Self organization of matter and the evolution of biological macro molecules.) Naturwissenschaften 58 (10). 1971 pp. 465-523. In English. Influential theoretical paper on origin-of-life biochemistry.

References

• Winkler-Oswatitsch, R (1987), "Manfred Eigen. Scientist and musician.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 109–15, 1987 May 9, doi:10.1016/0301-4622(87)80015-7, PMID 3300805  
• "List of publications by Manfred Eigen.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 103–8, 1987, 1987 May 9, doi:10.1016/0301-4622(87)80014-5, PMID 3300804  
• "Curriculum vitae of Manfred Eigen.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 102, 1987, 1987 May 9, doi:10.1016/0301-4622(87)80013-3, PMID 3300803  
• "Manfred Eigen Festschrift: special issue dedicated to Professor Manfred Eigen on the occasion of his 60th birthday.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 101–390, 1987, 1987 May 9, PMID 3300802  
• Weisskopf, V F; Eyring, H; Eyring, E M (1967), "Nobel Prizes: 4 named for international award (Hans Bethe, Manfred Eigen, R.G. Norrish, George Porter).", Science 158 (802): 745–8, 1967 Nov 10, PMID 4860395  
• Schlögl, R W (1997), "To Manfred Eigen on his 70th birthday.", Biophys. Chem. 66 (2-3): 71–3, 1997 Jun 30, doi:10.1016/S0301-4622(97)00075-6, PMID 17029872  

External links

• Biography of Manfred Eigen
• Manfred Eigen's homepage at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
• Manfred Eigen video at the Peoples Archive
• Interview with Manfred Eigen by Harry Kroto, NL Freeview video provided by the Vega Science Trust.
• "Falls ein Gott die Naturgesetze erschuf, so erschuf er auch das Leben durch Evolution" (Ger) Interview with Manfred Eigen from 2004
• debate on theory and proof