TUM Alumnus Prof. Dr. Johann Deisenhofer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988 together with Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel (Photo: Johann Deisenhofer).
Alumni doing research
„As a Scientist, You Will Never Know Everything, But Will Constantly Discover New Things“
In the mid-1960s, Johann Deisenhofer came to TUM as a young student, attracted by the opportunity to attend lectures by Nobel Laureate Robert Mößbauer. His early years of study fundamentally shaped his understanding of physics and the work of scientists. With his subsequent doctorate, he delved deeper into the then-new field of biochemistry. Together with his doctoral advisor and fellow TUM Alumnus Robert Huber, he discovered structures that had never been seen by human eyes before. In 1988, at the age of just 45, Johann Deisenhofer, along with Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In the interview, the TUM Alumnus talks about his years of study and research in Munich, why he moved to the United States as a professor, and what it’s like for a rather reserved scientist to suddenly find himself in the spotlight.
Professor Deisenhofer, your father was a farmer, and you grew up in a small village in Bavaria. How did your passion for science get sparked?
The expectation, of course, was that I would eventually take over my parents’ farm. However, I never really found that appealing, even from a young age. In school, I found academics relatively easy. I quickly started reading on my own, and there was one book that has stayed with me to this day. It was ‘The Nature of the Universe,’ a popular science book about the basics of astronomy by Fred Hoyle. It contained the state of knowledge about astronomy in the 1950s and was incredibly well-written. Reading it opened up an entirely new world for me. That’s when my dream of becoming an astronomer was born.
After high school, you chose to study physics instead. Why?
Many people I spoke with convinced me that it would be better to start with a less specialized field of study. Physics would provide me with a solid foundation that I could build upon later. So, it was a practical decision.
Picture: Patrick Kunkel/ Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
From Zusamaltheim, where you grew up, the choice of study location quickly narrowed down to Munich. The options were TUM and LMU. What was the deciding factor?
Rudolf Mößbauer had been appointed Professor of Physics at TUM in 1964. He had received the Nobel Prize in 1961. This bolstered TUM’s position as a center of physical research in Germany and attracted students from all over the country. I was one of them. Half of Germany was studying here. It was an incredibly exciting time.
Did you have the opportunity to experience Mößbauer yourself?
I attended a few of his lectures, but to be honest, I didn’t understand much at the time (laughs). Overall, I remember my early days at TUM as very challenging, especially after 18 months of military service, during which I had forgotten quite a bit of what I had learned in high school. For instance, the math courses started at levels several steps higher than my knowledge at the time. It was quite a challenge, but in the end, everything worked out (laughs). In any case, the first semesters at TUM completely turned my view of science upside down.
In what way?
I realized that I had a romantically idealized view of science. I always thought that if I kept learning and learning, I would eventually know everything at least within a limited field. However, at TUM, we were taught that while we might know a bit, there is still so much more that we don’t know. I came to understand that my youthful dream of becoming a scientist who knows everything was completely unrealistic.
Biophysics promised many new discoveries and was an exciting, emerging field.
What is your view of science today?
As scientists, we will never know everything. But we have the privilege of discovering and learning new things every day. This is actually far more beautiful than anything I imagined as a young person.
Were there any professors at TUM who particularly influenced you, aside from Professor Mößbauer?
I learned a great deal from the mathematicians Hanfried Lenz and Josef Heinhold, and the physicist Wilhelm Brenig. Their lectures were invaluable. Ernst-Otto Fischer, another Nobel Laureate, was a very pleasant and talented teacher. And especially Klaus Dransfeld, with whom I later wrote my diploma thesis, had a significant impact on me. He introduced me to biophysics, a field that was still very new at the time, but where I ended up staying for my entire career.
How did that come about?
Professor Dransfeld was scheduled to give a lecture on biophysics and spent several weeks exploring the field. The more he read, the more enthusiastic he became. His enthusiasm drew me in as well. If Professor Dransfeld was so fascinated by it, it had to be interesting. Biophysics promised many new discoveries and was an exciting, emerging field.
You wrote an excellent diploma thesis and wanted to continue in research. Why did you choose a career as a scientist?
I could never imagine doing anything other than research. Therefore, I wanted to pursue a PhD from the very beginning. And that’s exactly what happened.
Did your family always support you?
Both my mother and my father fully supported me. My parents always said, ‘If you’re going to follow this path, then aim for the highest achievement possible.’ Of course, nobody was thinking about the Nobel Prize at that time (laughs).
There were many highly respected members of this scientific field who directly told me that what we were trying to do was actually impossible.
You began your PhD under Professor Robert Huber, who had completed his diploma and PhD in chemistry at TUM about ten years before you.
I happened to learn that there was a young professor at the Max Planck Institute for Protein and Leather Research who was just assembling a new group to conduct research in the field of biophysics. I wanted to meet him, so I requested an appointment.
How did your first meeting go?
He was very different from what I had imagined. He was casual, down-to-earth, and spoke Bavarian. There were a backpack and hiking boots in his office, so he apparently went to the mountains often. These were many things that quickly won me over. He was also only six years older than I was. In his group, people addressed each other informally, which was quite unusual at that time. Additionally, his approach to research was very innovative and inspiring. He was a pioneer: the number of known protein structures at that time could be counted on ten fingers, and he had contributed to one of them. It seemed like an environment where one could learn and experiment a lot. Fortunately, he accepted me as a PhD student.
“What did your daily work routine in the group look like?
My main work involved collecting data on X-ray diffraction of crystals. At that time, it involved a lot of computer work. The biggest challenge was that there was hardly any usable software, and the computers were almost hopelessly slow with very limited storage capacity. There were no interactive displays to view the structures; you had to create a metal model and compare it with the results. It was so much more laborious than it is today.
At that time, were you confident that you would achieve good research results in the project?
There were many highly respected members of the scientific community who directly told me that what we were trying to do was not feasible. The work involved many setbacks, especially with the crystallization of proteins. Proteins are not naturally designed to crystallize. It was a very good and exciting project, but we were by no means certain about what the outcome would be.
Did the doubts and criticism from others not bother you?
That’s part of the nature of science and is quite normal when you’re exploring new territory. It’s also common to occasionally lose your way and then need to adjust your course. However, through my work at the institute, I saw the progress we were making every day. I knew that someone observing from the outside couldn’t develop the same sense of the situation as we, who were directly working on the problem, could.
After completing your PhD, you joined the Max Planck Institute as a postdoc and habilitated at TUM. Then you were offered a professorship in biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, which you accepted. Had you long harbored the desire to work in the USA?
The offer came as a complete surprise to me. In the mid-1980s, Hartmut Michel, several colleagues, and I had achieved a great result related to a photosynthetic reaction center. As a result, we were invited to give lectures worldwide. I felt that it was now the time for me to seek my own research group or an independent position in science. I applied to several universities and institutions in Germany, was invited to give lectures, and then, suddenly, one day I received a letter from Dallas, Texas, in my mailbox with a job offer.
How did that happen?
It turned out that someone who attended one of the many lectures I had given knew a friend who was setting up a biochemistry department at a medical school in Dallas. He was urgently looking for people to conduct research in structural biology. Since there were not many experts in the field, the attendee from my lecture remembered me.
Was it immediately clear to you that you would accept the offer?
My problem was that I didn’t know the institution making the offer at all. And Googling wasn’t an option back then (laughs). But we had a postdoc in our department from the USA. I asked him for his opinion. If he were in my position, he said he would accept the offer immediately. So, I decided to visit Dallas on one of my upcoming trips to the USA and check it out. I was very impressed. However, I also had an offer from a German university.
What ultimately decided the choice for the USA?
There was a cultural difference that played a significant role in my decision. The Texans said to me, ‘We want you to come to us. Tell us what you need, and you’ll get it.’ In Germany, the response was much more hesitant, with phrases like ‘Yes, maybe, we’ll see.’ So, I went to Texas.
You were a professor in Texas for eight months when you received the news that you had been awarded the Nobel Prize—together with Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel. Did you suspect anything?
Occasionally, colleagues would say, ‘You’ll see, one day.’ But I always thought it would take at least another 20 years. The fact that it happened so quickly was completely unexpected. In the end, it was very beneficial, as the Nobel Prize made my life significantly easier overall.
In what way?
This honor allows you to conduct exactly the research you want to pursue. It becomes easier to secure the necessary funding, and you no longer have to justify yourself as much. It’s not as critical to constantly produce groundbreaking results. At the same time, there are naturally many distractions—invites to conferences and lectures, interviews, and public appearances. One could be traveling all the time. Fortunately, this has somewhat subsided for me, partly due to the pandemic, and I must admit I’m grateful for that.
How did you find out that you had been awarded the Nobel Prize?
The funny thing is that they first looked for me in Germany. I had only recently moved abroad. So the press initially descended on my family in Germany (laughs). It took about two hours for word to spread that I was in Texas. Fortunately, I had some time to come to terms with the news. The medical school where I was working had already had two Nobel Laureates before and knew exactly what to expect. That was very helpful for me.
Which moment from the days of the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm stands out most in your memory?
My mother was a big fan of the Swedish Queen. So, it was very special for me to have my parents there and to see them together with the royal family. It also made me proud to show them that their trust in me and my education was justified. However, my wife says that I was rather grumpy during the time in Stockholm, mainly because the schedule was almost non-stop. I’m more introverted and wasn’t used to being in the public spotlight at that time (laughs).
You say that the Nobel Prize gave you the opportunity to shape your research relatively freely. Which discoveries and projects from recent years are you particularly proud of?
The great thing was that we built the biophysics group from scratch in Texas. It was an entirely new field with a wide range of projects to choose from. There were promising projects, as well as those where success seemed less likely but were still worth pursuing to see what would happen. Essentially, it was how science should be. One student determined the structure of an enzyme inhibited by cholesterol-lowering drugs. Another researcher re-crystallized a large part of the LDL receptor and determined its structure. These were major successes.
Does it also happen that you cannot solve a scientific problem right away?
Certainly.
And what do you do then?
I’m more the type who stays at my laptop, searching for the solution somewhere on white paper or in the data. Of course, it’s not there, but eventually, I come up with new ideas or think of other approaches that I then try out. Currently, I’m trying to understand how the application of artificial intelligence works in structure prediction.
So, there are always new challenges for you as well?
Especially when technology changes, it can give science an entirely new direction. In our field, there was a long-standing competition over who had the better technology to visualize protein structures. For many years, X-ray crystallography, which we used at the Max Planck Institute, had the advantage. Particularly from 2013 onwards, cryo-electron microscopy began to revolutionize the field of structural biology. By the way, Joachim Frank, who completed his PhD at TUM with Walter Hoppe around the same time as I did, worked with this technology. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it in 2017. In recent years, a new technology has emerged: artificial intelligence is now being used to improve image quality, accelerate data processing, and determine structures with greater accuracy. What is possible today is something I never would have expected.
You completed your PhD at TUM 50 years ago. This year, you are celebrating your Golden PhD Jubilee with many alumni on October 12th in Garching and will be awarded the Golden PhD Certificate by the President. What does this mean to you?
I’m sure it will be an emotional moment for me. I owe so much to TUM. It’s hard to imagine being where I am today without what I learned at TUM. I’m looking forward to being there in October, and I hope to see some of my fellow students from back then.
You mentioned that in the 1960s, TUM was a magnet for aspiring physicists from across Germany. How do you assess the significance of TUM today?
TUM is one of the top recognized institutions in Germany, and its reputation now extends globally. Today, TUM plays an even more significant role than it did back then. In the 1960s, it was already a magnet for talent, but it has since evolved into a global hub for cutting-edge research and innovation. The networking with international scientists and interdisciplinary collaboration are at an impressive level. For me personally, TUM remains a symbol of excellence and innovation. It shaped me back then and continues to do so for students and researchers worldwide. I am proud to be a part of this community.
TUM Alumnus and Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Johann Deisenhofer (Photo: Johann Deisenhofer).
Prof. Dr. Johann Deisenhofer
Diploma Physics 1971, Doctorate 1974, Habilitation 1987
Johann Deisenhofer was born on September 30, 1943, in Zusamaltheim, a small village in Bavaria. He developed a passion for the natural sciences early on, particularly astronomy, which ultimately led him to study physics. After graduating from high school and completing his military service, he chose to study physics at TUM, inspired by the work of Nobel Laureate Rudolf Mößbauer, who had recently joined TUM. He received a scholarship for particularly gifted students to support his studies.
After earning his diploma, Johann Deisenhofer continued his scientific career in biophysics, starting a doctorate under TUM Professor Dr. Robert Huber, who led a group at the Max Planck Institute for Protein and Leather Research in Martinsried near Munich. His research focused on the crystallographic analysis of proteins, a field that was still young and challenging at the time. In collaboration with Robert Huber and Professor Dr. Hartmut Michel, Johann Deisenhofer succeeded in deciphering the three-dimensional structure of the photosynthetic reaction center of purple bacteria. This groundbreaking work provided a deeper understanding of photosynthetic processes and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988.
Johann Deisenhofer continued his career in the United States, becoming a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where he made significant contributions to the structural analysis of proteins. His research encompasses not only photosynthesis but also other biological processes such as signal transduction and immune response.
In addition to his scientific work, Johann Deisenhofer is also committed to training the next generation of scientists. He is a sought-after speaker at international conferences and has been honored with numerous awards and memberships in scientific academies. His work has significantly contributed to the development of structural biology and continues to inspire researchers worldwide.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Johann Deisenhofer has received many other accolades, including the Federal Cross of Merit in 1990 and the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1992. In 2024, Johann Deisenhofer will celebrate his Golden Doctorate Jubilee with the TUM family.
