Background
Toennies grew up in Eutin, Germany.
Toennies grew up in Eutin, Germany.
1920 – 1924 he studied at Universities in Freiburg (1920), Munich (1921 – 1922) and Kiel (1922 – 1924), where in 1925 he received his Doctor of Philosophy in organic chemistry.
He was drafted into the German army in 1916 and shortly after was taken prisoner of war. As a French prisoner 1916 – 1920 he was assigned to a gas works in Le Havre, France, where he became interested in chemistry. Toennies emigrated to the United States. in 1926 where he joined the Texas Oil Company in Bayonne, New Jersey until 1929.
The LHRI was founded by Stanley P. Reimann and Frederick Hammett in 1927 as one of the first United States. laboratories devoted to fundamental cancer research.
The present day Fox Chase Cancer Center stems from the LHRI. Toennies was head of the Department of Microbiology 1947 –1963. At retirement he was awarded the honorary position “Senior Member Emeritus” by their board of trustees.
Subsequently he became research professor at Temple University School of Medicine (1963 – 1968) and finally a visiting professor at the University of Göttingen and the “Biologische Bundesanstalt für Landund Forstwirtschaft” in Braunschweig. Toennies was married to Dita Margarete Jebens (1903 – 1959) and Dorothy West (1903 – 2004).
He is survived by January Peter Toennies (1930 - ) and Ralf Gerrit Toennies (1939 - ).
In 1940 Toennies was the first to point out the probable biological importance of sulfonium compounds – a prediction later borne out by a variety of findings by other investigators. Later, he was the first to demonstrate that the red blood cells are a major site of bound forms of folic acids, a group of vitamins that play an important role in rapid growth of tissues such as occurs in cancer. He also made pioneering contributions to our understanding of the role of various chemicals on bacterial growth.
Over the years Toennies developed chemical procedures so precise and useful that many of them have become standards.
1936 # 2049480 Oxidation of Cysteine and Related Compounds and process for Making Same
1937 # 2078592 (with TF Lavine) Oxidation of Cysteine and Related Compounds and process for Making Same
1940 # 2222993 Process of Recovering Amino Acids
1944 # 2349774 Acetoxy Amino Acids and Methods for their Preparation.
Then he became a staff member of the Philadelphia Lankenau Hospital Institute (LHRI), which later was called the Institute for Cancer.