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work on tobacco mosaic disease played an important role in the discovery of tobacco mosaic virus and
viruses in general.
Born
9 August 1843
Oldenburg, Germany
Died
Heidelberg, Germany
Nationality
German
Alma mater
Heidelberg University
Known for
Scientific career
Fields
Botany, Virology
Institutions
University of Halle-Wittenberg
Heidelberg University
Influences
Julius Kühn
Influenced
Adolf Mayer was born in 1843 in the family of a high school teacher in Oldenburg. His mother was a
daughter of renowned German chemist Leopold Gmelin. From 1860 to 1862 he studied mathematics
and chemistry at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In 1862 he enrolled at the University of
Heidelberg, where in 1864 he obtained Ph.D. in chemistry, physics and mathematics with summa cum
laude.
In 1879, while Mayer held the position of the director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at
Wageningen in the Netherlands, he was asked by Dutch farmers to study a peculiar disease affecting the
tobacco plant. Mayer published a paper in 1886 on the disease which he named as "mosaic disease of
tobacco" and described its symptoms in detail.[1] He demonstrated that the disease can be transmitted
by using the sap from the affected tobacco plants as the inoculum to infect healthy plants. At the time,
this disease was thought to be spread by very small bacteria or toxins, yet some years later the tobacco
mosaic virus (TMV) was shown to be the culprit. Mayer employed optical microscopy to seek for signs of
fungi or bacteria in the infected sap, yet he did not find any, since the TMV is too small to be detected in
optical microscope. Mayer still concluded that the infectious agent was some sort of bacteria and
erroneously claimed that he was able to obtain "clear filtrate" from the infected sap using filter paper in
several repetitions. Filtration experiments with paper and finest porcelain Chamberland filters were
replicated by Dmitry Ivanovsky in 1892 and Martinus Beijerinck in 1898 who showed that the infectious
agent of the tobacco mosaic disease was in fact infilterable. It was Martinus Beijerinck who first coined
the term of "virus" to indicate a non-bacterial nature of the tobacco mosaic disease. In 1935, the
tobacco mosaic virus was the first virus to be crystallized. Regardless of the erroneous conclusion,
Mayer's pioneer work on the tobacco mosaic disease served as an important step in the discovery of
viruses and led to the foundation of the field of virology.[2][3]
Adolf Eduard Mayer (9 de agosto de 1843 - 25 de diciembre de 1942) fue un químico agrícola alemán
cuyo trabajo sobre la enfermedad del mosaico del tabaco desempeñó un papel importante en el
descubrimiento del virus del mosaico del tabaco y los virus en general.
Nacido
9 de agosto de 1843
Oldenburg, Alemania
Murió
Heidelberg, Alemania
Nacionalidad
alemán
alma mater
Universidad de heidelberg
Conocido por
Carrera cientifica
Campos
Botánica, virología
Instituciones
Universidad de Halle-Wittenberg
Universidad de heidelberg
Influencias
Julius kühn
Influenciado
Dmitri Ivanovsky, Martinus Beijerinck
Adolf Mayer nació en 1843 en la familia de un profesor de secundaria en Oldenburg. Su madre era hija
del renombrado químico alemán Leopold Gmelin. De 1860 a 1862 estudió matemáticas y química en el
Instituto de Tecnología de Karlsruhe. En 1862 se matriculó en la Universidad de Heidelberg, donde en
1864 obtuvo el Ph.D. en química, física y matemáticas con summa cum laude.
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