Description

What a Grand Tour: from remote Suhl behind the iron curtain to top places of the world.

Whenever Horst Kessler had mastered a research field he moved on—against common practice in science. He therefore not only became famous in NMR spectroscopy but also in Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry.

Born in 1940 he was always competitive: first as a swimmer and later as a chemist. He started to learn the profession in East Germany’s Leipzig and continued in Tübingen; in 1971 he moved to Frankfurt to become the youngest full professor in Germany. Later he established the world-renowned Bavarian NMR Center at TUM, Munich. To study the structure and dynamics first of small and later of biologically interesting large molecules—peptides and proteins—became his hallmark. Horst Kessler leaves a lasting impression not only through his scientific results but also through the scientific school he built.