Otto Warburg, artisan of cell chemistry 45 



zone, while the mother research institute was in the American sector of Berlin. 

 Warburg decided for the Americans, and in 1948 began anew to re-establish at 

 Dahlem the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute* for Cell Physiology, the building of which 

 had remained undamaged. From all sides he received help, as reward for not 

 fleeing from Berlin, from neither Hitler nor Stalin. His efforts during the war years 

 and after, to maintain his laboratory and experimental work, bore fruit in the 

 uniquely early reconstitution of his institute, which, already in 1949, had become 

 well equipped with apparatus and books. 



It was during this year of the re-equipment of his Dahlem institute that he 

 availed himself of an opportunity to visit his American friends. Through the 

 courtesy and generous support of the National Institutes of Health, United States 

 Public Health Service, at Bethesda, Maryland, he was enabled, in Cooperation 

 with the staff of the Cytochemistry Section there, and with Sterling Hendricks 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture at nearby Beltsville, to develop 

 modern methods of photosynthetic experimentation, and to "rediscover" the high 

 efficiency of photosynthesis. As a conclusion to this important and memorable visit, 

 the experimental set-up at Bethesda was transferred for the summer of 1949 to the 

 Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where he had the 

 privilege of demonstrating for many weeks, through the hospitality of Professor 

 E. S. Guzman-Barron, the new methods to the rising generation of American 

 biologists. Since these Woods Hole days he has been a member of the Institute for 

 Muscle Research founded by Albert Szent-Györgyi and Stephen Rath. 



On May 8, 1950, General Maxwell D. Taylor**, then Military Commandant of 

 the American Sector of Berlin, officially reopened the Dahlem institute. The re- 

 birth of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology, celebrated with cere- 

 mony on that day, the fifth anniversary of the cessation of hostilities, was a signal 

 event both for science and for the promotion of good relations among men of good 

 will everywhere. Today, the Institute Stands at the crest of the biochemical institutes 

 of the world, and, in addition, is probably the finest photochemical institute in 

 existence. Its director expects to do his greatest and boldest experiments, as did his 

 distinguished father before him, after passing the three score and ten mark. 

 His genius may be likened to a positive first order reaction with an extended 

 half-time, attained only after the Half-Century of Biochemical Discovery listed 

 below. 



It would be superfluous here to give an extended list of the many honors received 

 by Professor Warburg, such as the Nobel Prize in Medicine (1931, for iron- 

 oxygenase), Foreign Membership in the Royal Society of London (1934), and, 

 most recently (1952), Knighthood in the Order of Merit founded originally by 

 Frederick the Great and restricted to thirty of Germany's most distinguished 

 Citizens. 



A scientific appreciation of his work is probably best realized by the following 

 appended table, which contains a list of experimental contributions regarded by 

 him as his most important discoveries. Most of these were accomplished and accep- 



* Since July 1953: Max Planck Institute. 

 ** Heute militärischer Chef berater des Präsidenten der USA John F. Kennedy. 



