Max Bergmann was a German-born American biochemist. He was the first to use the Carboxybenzyl protecting group for the synthesis of oligopeptides.
Background
Max Bergmann was born on February 12, 1886, in Furth, Germany, the fifth son and seventh of nine children of Solomon and Rosalie (Stettauer) Bergmann. His father, a prosperous coal merchant, came of a Jewish family that had lived in the town for many generations.
Education
Maz completed his secondary schooling in Furth, Bergmann and took his first degree in 1907 at the University of Munich. He had originally been attracted to botany, but when he realized that many botanical problems could be solved only by the methods of organic chemistry, he enrolled in the chemical department of the University of Berlin, then headed by Emil Fischer. Working under Ignaz Bloch, Bergmann took the Ph. D. degree in 1911 with a dissertation on acyl polysulfides and thereupon became an assistant to Fischer.
Career
During World War I, Bergmann was exempted from military service because of his position with Fischer and was closely associated with his chief's research on amino acids, carbohydrates, and tannins. After Fischer's death in 1919 he was appointed privatdozent in the University of Berlin and assistant director and head of the department of chemistry of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Textile Research. In 1921 he became director of the newly established Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Leather Research in Dresden and received the title of professor in the Technische Hochschule of that city. Since the institute was partly supported by the leather industry, Bergmann was obliged to conduct research on chemical problems of technical interest (such as tanning) and to spend much time in consultation with leather manufacturers.
With Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, Bergmann came to the United States. He was made an associate member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City in 1934; three years later he became a full member, a position he held until his death. Bergmann's scientific work before and after coming to the United States shows considerable continuity. The results of his research, and of that done under his direction, were published in some 350 articles in chemical and biochemical periodicals during the period 1913-1946.
While at Dresden Bergmann created one of the leading laboratories in the field of protein chemistry and attracted numerous young chemists from other countries (including the United States). One of these was Leonidas Zervas, who was associated with Bergmann during the years 1926-1933 and joined him in the United States for two years (1935 - 1937) before returning to his native Greece. Bergmann, Zervas, and their associates made numerous contributions to the chemistry of amino acids and peptides. Among them were studies on the mechanism of the racemization of amino acids, on the use of oxazolones for the synthesis of peptides, and on the transfer of the amidine group of arginine to glycine, a process later shown to occur in biological systems.
In 1932 Bergmann and Zervas devised a new method for the synthesis of peptides, the "carbobenzoxy" method, which marked a new era in protein chemistry. Their method opened an easy route to large numbers of peptides - those containing optically active amino acids with reactive side chains - which had hitherto been difficult or impossible to prepare. Although many improvements in the methods of peptide synthesis were made by subsequent workers, especially after World War II, the fundamental importance of the pioneer work of Bergmann and Zervas is firmly established.
At the Rockefeller Institute, Bergmann directed the work of his laboratory along two lines. The first of these involved applying the carbobenzoxy method to the synthesis of peptides for possible use as substrates for proteolytic (protein-splitting) enzymes (such as pepsin). This work, largely pursued by Joseph S. Fruton, led in 1936-1939 to the discovery of the first synthetic peptide substrates for these enzymes, thus opening the way for the study of their specificity of action. The second line of work, an approach to the unsolved problems of protein structure, was directed to the development of new methods for the quantitative analysis of the amino acid composition of proteins. With Carl Niemann, Bergmann in 1938 proposed that the arrangement of amino acids in a protein chain was periodic in nature; although this theory was later shown to be an oversimplification, it stimulated great experimental activity in the protein field.
In Bergmann's laboratory, Stanford Moore and William H. Stein began work that later led them to solve the problem of the accurate quantitative determination of the amino acid composition of proteins. These researches were suspended after 1941, when Bergmann's laboratory turned its attention to the chemistry of war gases, a project under the auspices of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. In 1944, at the age of fifty-eight, he died of cancer at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
Achievements
Membership
Max Bergmann was president of the International Society of Leather Chemists (1928-1933).
Connections
Bergmann was first married in 1912, to Emmy Miriam Grunwald, and had two children, Esther Maria and Peter Gabriel; the son became a theoretical physicist. The marriage ended in divorce, and on March 20, 1926, Bergmann married Martha Suter; there were no children.