Konrad Bloch, PhD

Abstract

Konrad Bloch, PhD (1912–2000) Konrad Bloch was born on January 21, 1912, in Neisse, the German province of Silesia, into a comfortable middle-class household. In 1941, Bloch married Lore Teutsch, originally from Munich, and they had 2 children, Peter and Susan. As a child, Bloch was interested in the natural sciences, and after completing secondary school, he enrolled in the University of Technology, Munich (the Technische Hochschule). Bloch enjoyed introductory courses in chemistry, particularly the organic chemistry course taught by Dr. Hans Fischer. Bloch’s opportunity to continue his graduate education in Germany studying chemistry was cut short by the rise of the Nazi party and their restrictions on people of Jewish descent. Fortunately, Fischer came to Bloch’s aid by referring him to Dr. Fredric Roulet, a pathologist and head of the Schweizerisches Hohenforschung Institut in Davos, Switzerland. Davos was famous for the longest ski runs in the Alps and for its many tuberculosis sanatoria. Under the supervision of Roulet, Bloch’s first research project was to determine the nature of the lipids found in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) , with the hope that understanding the unique biochemistry of mycobacterial lipids would offer insight into the development of drugs to treat tuberculosis. A prior student in Roulet’s laboratory had identified cholesterol in M. tuberculosis , which was contrary to the finding by Chargaff in 1935 that cholesterol was absent in M. tuberculosis .1 Bloch’s first task was to repeat those studies. When he was unable to find cholesterol in M. tuberculosis , Roulet was displeased that the results of his previous student could not be repeated.1 However, when similar negative findings were reported by R.J. Anderson and R. Schoenheimer from Columbia University in New York City, Roulet accepted his work. Bloch moved on to investigate the phospholipid chemistry of M. …