No. 3/ March 23, 2009
Professor Jens Reich Turns 70
Professor Jens Reich Turns 70 (Photo: David Ausserhofer/Copyright: MDC)
Professor emeritus Jens Reich, physician, molecular biologist and civil rights activist, celebrates his 70th birthday on March 26, 2009. Since retiring five years ago from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, he has remained active in research. Through genome database searches and analysis he seeks to identify genes that are important for cholesterol metabolism. Currently he is coordinating a research network project at MDC together with a research group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg and the University of Heidelberg on the systems biology of human iron metabolism and its pathological dysregulation.
Professor
Reich, born in Göttingen in 1939, has worked in Berlin-Buch since 1968. From
1992 until his retirement in 2004 he was research group leader in medical
genome research in MDC and from 1998 until 2004 C4 professor of bioinformatics at
In the 1980s Professor Reich was very active in the civil rights movement in the GDR and in 1989/90 was one of the founders of the “New Forum”. In 1991 he received the Theodor Heuss Prize, in 1993 the Anna Krüger Prize – awarded for the first time – with which he was honored for his “good and understandable scholarly language”. In 1994 he was an independent candidate for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 1996 he was awarded the Lorenz Oken Medal of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Medical Doctors for his “outstanding and manifold contributions, orally and in writing, to developments in gene research”.
In 1998 he
received the Urania Medal of the
In 2001 the cabinet of the German Federal Government appointed him as member of the newly founded National Ethics Council. In 2005 he was reappointed to this body, this time as vice-chairman. In 2008 Professor Norbert Lammert, president of the German Parliament, appointed him to the German Ethics Council, the successor organization of the National Ethics Council.
Professor
Reich has over 70 scientific publications to his credit and has also written
numerous essays on gene research for the general press. Moreover, he is the
author of many books, including Rückkehr
nach Europa [Return to
Barbara Bachtler
Press and Public Affairs
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