Hans Sachs (June 6, 1877, Kattowitz (

Katowice Katowice ( , , ; szl, Katowicy; german: Kattowitz, yi, קאַטעוויץ, Kattevitz) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Upper Silesian metropolitan area. It is the 11th most popu ...

) – March 25, 1945,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 cen ...

), was a German serologist. He was of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

ancestry.Horst Dickel, "HANS SACHS" in Gisela M. B. Holfter (ed.), ''German-speaking Exiles in Ireland 1933-1945'', Rodopi (2006), p. 184

Early life and education

Sachs studied at the universities of

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

, Breslau (Wrocław) and Berlin. He was a student and research assistant of

Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure ...

. In 1900, he received his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

from the University of Leipzig.

Career

From 1905, he taught and conducted research at the University of Frankfurt. He was promoted to

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

in 1907 and became an honorary professor after 1914. In 1920, he moved to Heidelberg, where he served as professor of the Institute for

Immune In biology, immunity is the capability of multicellular organisms to resist harmful microorganisms. Immunity involves both specific and nonspecific components. The nonspecific components act as barriers or eliminators of a wide range of pathogens ...

and Serum Research and director of the scientific department of the Institute for Experimental Cancer Research. Sachs worked on investigations into the importance of lipoids for cancer immunity with Ernst Witebsky, who had been working in Heidelberg since 1925. In 1935, he was expelled from the Institute and the University as part of the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

campaign to purge all

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

s from academia. He fled Germany to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in 1938 and later settled in

, where he died in 1945.

Achievements

His work in improving the diagnosis of syphilis was groundbreaking. In collaboration with other scientists, he developed the Sachs-Georgi reaction, a serological test for

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, and ...

and a precipitation reaction test known as the Sachs-Witebsky reaction.

References

External links

Brief biography from ''Who Named It?''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sachs, Hans 1877 births 1945 deaths German people of Jewish descent German immunologists People from the Province of Silesia People from Katowice Serologists