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Jürgen Walther Ludwig Aschoff (* 25. January 1913 in Freiburg im Breisgau; † 11. October 1998 in the same city) was a German biologist and behavior physiologist; together with Erwin Bünning and Colin Pittendrigh founder of the Chronobiology.
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Life
Aschoff was born as a fifth child of the pathologist Ludwig Aschoff (Aschoff Tawara knot) and his wife Clara. After the Abitur at a humanistic High School he - according to own statement "lack specific interest"- studied medicine in Bonn, where he joined the Burschenschaft Alemannia Bonn. After its conclusion 1937 in Freiburg got the venia legendi 1944 and began his first employment as a professor in 1949 at the Göttinger university as a physiologist.
Starting from 1952 he worked on the Max Planck Institute for medical research in Heidelberg. He was from 1967 to 1979 a director at the Max Planck Institute for behavior physiology in Andechs and extraordinary Professor in Munich. Aschoff was scientific member and member of the Kollegiums of the Max Planck Institute for behavior physiology as well as from 1972 to 1976 senator of the Max Planck Society.
After its retreat and removal back to Freiburg Aschoff continued its scientific work in the form of further publications. Only the death of his wife Hilde could break its unusual vitality. Jürgen Aschoff died 10 months later than his wife after short illness at the age of 85 years.
Work
He made his early publications within the range of physiology over the thermal regularization. Nearly inevitably Aschoff determined a 24-Stunden-Rhythmus of the body variations in temperature with his research over the bodytemperature of humans (also with self-investigations). But as "a lonely wolf", as he called himself, he did not have a contact to other scientists, who concerned themselves with these phenomena. In addition the free-wheel1 rhythms of plants were unknown to him.
After he was pushed at the human temperature-regulation with self-attempts on the 24-hour-rhythm, the interest in the reasons of the basis mechanisms grew within Aschoff. He began to make further attempts this topic. Thus he grew up birds with his own hands and observed some mouse generations, which he bred under constant conditions in the laboratory. After these attempts it postulated: "The Rhythmik is innate, and it does not require exposing to a 24-hour-day, in order to produce it."
Publications (Selection)
- „Beginn und Ende der täglichen Aktivität freilebender Vögel“ (mit R. Wever, 1962),
- „Circadian Clocks" (1965), "Desynchronization and Resynchronization of Human Circadian Rhythm“ (1969),
- „The Circadian System of Man“ (mit R. Wever, 1981).
References
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