Franz Hillenkamp (March 18, 1936 – August 22, 2014) was a German scientist known for his development of the

laser microprobe mass analyzer A laser microprobe mass spectrometer (LMMS), also laser microprobe mass analyzer (LAMMA), laser ionization mass spectrometer (LIMS), or laser ionization mass analyzer (LIMA) is a mass spectrometer that uses a focused laser for microanalysis. It empl ...

and, with Michael Karas,

matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization In mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. It has been applied to the analysis of ...

(MALDI).

Early life and education

Franz Hillenkamp was born in 1936 in

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Do ...

, Germany. He attended high school in

Lünen Lünen is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located north of Dortmund, on both banks of the River Lippe. It is the largest town of the Unna district and part of the Ruhr Area. In 2009 a biogas plant was built to provide elect ...

, graduating in 1955. He received a M.S. degree in electrical engineering from

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and ...

in 1961. He received a Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) from the Technische Universität München in 1966 with a thesis entitled “An Absolutely Calibrated Calorimeter for the Measurement of Pulsed Laser Radiation.”

Academic career

Hillenkamp was a professor at

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...

in Frankfurt from 1982 to 1986. In 1986, he became a professor on the Medical Faculty of the

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of stud ...

where he remained until his retirement in 2001.

Laser microprobe

In 1973, Hillenkamp developed a high performance laser microprobe mass spectrometer with a spatial resolution of 0.5 µm and sub-

attogram To help compare different orders of magnitude, the following lists describe various mass levels between 10−59 kg and 1052 kg. The least massive thing listed here is a graviton, and the most massive thing is the observable universe. ...

limit of detection for

lithium Lithium (from el, λίθος, lithos, lit=stone) is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the least dense soli ...

atoms. This instrument was commercialized as the LAMMA 500 and was one of the first laser desorption mass spectrometers to be used for

mass spectrometry imaging Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is a technique used in mass spectrometry to visualize the spatial distribution of molecules, as biomarkers, metabolites, peptides or proteins by their molecular masses. After collecting a mass spectrum at one spot ...

of tissue. The later LAMMA 1000 was also based on a Hillenkamp design.

MALDI

In 1985, Hillenkamp and his colleague Michael Karas used a LAMMA 1000 mass spectrometer to demonstrate the technique of

(MALDI). MALDI is an

ionization Ionization, or Ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged atom or molecul ...

method used in

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is u ...

, allowing the analysis of large

biopolymer Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. Like other polymers, biopolymers consist of monomeric units that are covalently bonded in chains to form larger molecules. There are three main classes of biopolymers, ...

s. Although Karas and Hillenkamp were the first to discover MALDI, Japanese engineer

Koichi Tanaka is a Japanese electrical engineer who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for developing a novel method for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules with John Bennett Fenn and Kurt Wüthrich (the latter for work in N ...

was the first to use a similar method in 1988 to ionize proteins and shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for that work. Karas and Hillenkamp reported MALDI of proteins a few months later. The MALDI method of Karas and Hillenkamp subsequently became the much more widely used method.

Awards

In 1997, Hillenkamp and Karas were awarded the

American Society for Mass Spectrometry The American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) is a professional association based in the United States that supports the scientific field of mass spectrometry. As of 2018, the society had approximately 10,000 members primarily from the US, bu ...

Distinguished Contribution in Mass Spectrometry award for their discovery of MALDI. Hillenkamp and Karas received the Karl Heinz Beckurts Award, Germany's most important award for outstanding promotion of the partnership between science and industry, in 2003. Hillenkamp received the Thomson Medal from the

International Mass Spectrometry Foundation The International Mass Spectrometry Foundation (IMSF) is a non-profit scientific organization in the field of mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The res ...

in 2003.

References

External links

Franz Hillenkamp on masspec.scripps.edu

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hillenkamp, Franz Mass spectrometrists Scientists from North Rhine-Westphalia 20th-century German chemists 1936 births 2014 deaths Thomson Medal recipients People from Essen