Otto Heinrich Warburg, son of physicist Emil Warburg, was a German physiologist, medical
doctor and Nobel laureate.
He served as an officer in the elite Uhlan during the First World War, and was awarded
the Iron Cross for bravery. Warburg is considered one of the 20th century's leading biochemists.
He was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1931.
In total, he was nominated for the award 47 times over the course of his career.
Biography Warburg's father, Emil Warburg, was a member
of the illustrious Warburg family of Altona, and had converted to Christianity reportedly
after a disagreement with his Conservative Jewish parents.
Emil was also president of the Physikalische Reichsanstalt, Wirklicher Geheimer Oberregierungsrat.
His mother was the daughter of a Protestant family of bankers and civil servants from
Baden.
Warburg studied chemistry under the great Emil Fischer, and earned his Doctor of Chemistry
in Berlin in 1906.
He then studied under Ludolf von Krehl, and earned the degree of Doctor of Medicine in
Heidelberg in 1911.
Between 1908 and 1914, Warburg was affiliated with the Naples Marine Biological Station,
in Naples, Italy, where he conducted research.
In later years, he would return for visits, and maintained a lifelong friendship with
the family of the station's director, Anton Dohrn.
A lifelong equestrian, he served as an officer in the elite Uhlans on the front during the
First World War, where he won the Iron Cross.
Warburg later credited this experience with affording him invaluable insights into "real
life" outside the confines of academia.
Towards the end of the war, when the outcome was unmistakable, Albert Einstein, who had
been a friend of Warburg's father Emil, wrote Warburg at the behest of friends, asking him
to leave the army and return to academia, since it would be a tragedy for the world
to lose his talents.
Einstein and Warburg later became friends, and Einstein's work in physics had great influence
on Otto's biochemical research.
Scientific work and Nobel Prize
While working at the Marine Biological Station, Warburg performed research on oxygen consumption
in sea urchin eggs after fertilization, and proved that upon fertilization, the rate of
respiration increases by as much as sixfold.
His experiments also proved iron is essential for the development of the larval stage.
In 1918, Warburg was appointed professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in
Berlin-Dahlem.
By 1931 he was named director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology, which
was founded the previous year by a donation of the Rockefeller Foundation to the Kaiser
Wilhelm Gesellschaft. Warburg investigated the metabolism of tumors
and the respiration of cells, particularly cancer cells, and in 1931 was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology for his "discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory
enzyme."
The award came after receiving 46 nominations over a period of nine years beginning in 1923,
13 of which were submitted in 1931, the year he won the prize.
Survival under the Nazis When the Nazis came to power, people of Jewish
descent were forced from their professional positions.
However, the Nazis were hypocritical in their implementation of this policy, looking the
other way in some cases where they could use Jewish scientists to advance the technology
of the Reich.
Despite having a Jewish father, Warburg was spared.
By this time Warburg was studying cancer.
While banned from teaching he was allowed to carry on his research.
In 1935, Hitler had a polyp removed from his vocal cords.
It is believed that afterwards, he feared that could develop cancer, which may have
allowed Warburg to survive.
In 1941, Warburg lost his post briefly, when he made critical remarks about the regime
but a few weeks later a personal order from Hitler's Chancellery ordered him to resume
work on his cancer research.
Göring also arranged for him to be classified as one-quarter Jewish.
According to the Reichsbürgergesetz from 1935 Hahn was considered by the Nazis a half-Jew
resp.
Mischling and in September 1942 he issued an official request for equal status with
Germans which was granted.
It is believed that Warburg was so totally dedicated to his work that he was prepared
to not only stay in Germany but also accept the Nazi treatment of his Jewish colleagues
and his Jewish relatives.
This was despite him having received an offer from the Rockefeller Foundation to continue
to fund his work if he emigrated.
After the end of the Second World War he made inquires about moving the United States of
America, but his approach was turned down.
In 1943 Warburg relocated his laboratory to the village of Liebenburg on the outskirts
of Berlin to avoid ongoing air attacks.
Nomination for a second Nobel Prize In 1944, Warburg was nominated for a second
Nobel Prize in Physiology by Albert Szent-Györgyi, for his work on nicotinamide, the mechanism
and enzymes involved in fermentation, and the discovery of flavin.
Some sources reported he was selected to receive the award that year, but was prevented from
receiving it by Adolf Hitler’s regime, which had issued a decree in 1937 that forbade Germans
from accepting Nobel Prizes.
According to the Nobel Foundation, this rumor is not true; although he was considered a
worthwhile candidate, he was not selected for the prize.
Three scientists who worked in Warburg's lab, including Sir Hans Adolf Krebs, went on to
win the Nobel Prize.
Among other discoveries, Krebs is credited with the identification of the citric acid
cycle.
Warburg’s combined work in plant physiology, cell metabolism and oncology made him an integral
figure in the later development of systems biology.
He worked with Dean Burk in photosynthesis to discover the I-quantum reaction that splits
the CO2, activated by the respiration.
Cancer hypothesis
In 1924, Warburg hypothesized that cancer, malignant growth, and tumor growth are caused
by tumor cells mainly generating energy by nonoxidative breakdown of glucose and the
subsequent recycling of the metabolite NADH back to its oxidized form, for reuse in the
glycolytic cycle to complete the process.
This is in contrast to "healthy" cells, which mainly generate energy from oxidative breakdown
of pyruvate.
Pyruvate is an end product of glycolysis, and is oxidized within the mitochondria.
Hence, and according to Warburg, cancer should be interpreted as a mitochondrial dysfunction.
Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes.
But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause.
Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration
of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar.
Warburg continued to develop the hypothesis experimentally, and held several prominent
lectures outlining the theory and the data.
The concept that cancer cells switch to fermentation in lieu of aerobic respiration has become
widely accepted, even if it is not seen as the cause of cancer.
Some suggest the Warburg phenomenon could be used to develop anticancer drugs.
Meanwhile, cancer cell glycolysis is the basis of positron emission tomography, a medical
imaging technology that relies on this phenomenon.
Later years
Otto Warburg edited and had much of his original work published in The Metabolism of Tumours
and wrote New Methods of Cell Physiology.
An unabashed anglophile, Otto Warburg was thrilled when Oxford University awarded him
an honorary doctorate.
He was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite in 1952, and was known to tell other universities
not to bother with honorary doctorates, and to ask officials to mail him medals he had
been awarded so as to avoid a ceremony that would separate him from his beloved laboratory.
When frustrated by the lack of acceptance of his ideas, Warburg was known to quote an
aphorism he attributed to Max Planck: Science progresses not because scientists change their
minds, but rather because scientists attached to erroneous views die, and are replaced.
Seemingly utterly convinced of the accuracy of his conclusions, Warburg expressed dismay
at the "continual discovery of cancer agents and cancer viruses" which he expected to "hinder
necessary preventative measures and thereby become responsible for cancer cases".
In his later years, Warburg was convinced that illness resulted from pollution; this
caused him to become a bit of a health advocate.
He insisted on eating bread made from wheat grown organically on land that belonged to
him.
When he visited restaurants, he often made arrangements to pay the full price for a cup
of tea, but to only be served boiling water, from which he would make tea with a tea bag
he had brought with him.
He was also known to go to significant lengths to obtain organic butter, the quality of which
he trusted.
When Dr. Josef Issels, an intrepid doctor who became famous for his use of nonmainstream
therapies to treat cancer, was arrested and later found guilty of malpractice in what
Issels alleged was a highly politicized case, Warburg offered to testify on Issels' behalf
at his appeal to the German Supreme Court.
All of Issels' convictions were overturned.
The Otto Warburg Medal The Otto Warburg Medal is intended to commemorate
Warburg's outstanding achievements.
It has been awarded by the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since
1963.
The prize honors and encourages pioneering achievements in fundamental biochemical and
molecular biological research.
The Otto Warburg Medal is regarded as the highest award for biochemists and molecular
biologists in Germany.
It has been endowed with prize money, sponsored by the publishing company Elsevier/BBA.
Bibliography
References
External links Notable Names Database Biography
Nobel Lecture biography 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer Excerpt from The Warburgs by Ron Chernow pgs.
539-541 Website of the Otto Warburg Medal