Professor Albert Wollenberger PhD ScD was born on May 21, 1912 in Freiburg/Breisgau, Germany. In 1933, for political reasons, he had to leave Germany and he remained abroad for over 20 years. Emigrating to the United States, he continued his academic education in biology and medical sciences at Harvard University, Boston (1940 to 1944), where he obtained his PhD.
In the 1950s, Albert Wollenberger returned to Europe. His research took him to Denmark, Sweden, England and finally Humboldt University, Berlin. In 1954, he became a full professor and, in 1956, he founded a cardiac research group at the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Buch, German Democratic Republic. He remained head of this institution, later named the Institute for Circulation Research (1965), and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology (1972) at the Central Institute for Heart and Circulatory Research for 21 years.
During this period, he made an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the function, metabolism and biochemical mechanisms of the neuronal and hormonal regulation of the heart. Wollenberger was among the first to cultivate isolated beating cardiomyocytes (primarily from chicken hearts), and he initiated their biochemical, pharmacological and morphological-cytochemical characterization (1960). He made many contributions to energy metabolism in the healthy and failing heart (1958), and the mechanism governing the transition from an aerobic to an anaerobic energy supply in the acutely ischemic heart (1968). He showed the oscillatory changes in the level of cyclic AMP during the beat to beat rhythm in frog ventricular heart tissue (1972) and mammals (1988). His laboratory was one of the first to investigate the cytochemical localization of the cyclic nucleotide-generating enzymes, adenlylyl and guanylyl cyclases, using newly developed techniques (1971).
The discovery of cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinases led Albert Wollenberger to initiate a major program of research in Berlin-Buch aimed at identifying a possible substrate that might be an intrinsic protein of the sarcolemma or sarcoplasmic reticulum of cardiomyocytes (1972). At that time, this East German group was competing with three American groups to be the first to identify the role of protein phosphorylation in regulating calcium homeostasis and, thereby, contraction and relaxation of the heart.
Albert Wollenberger was always free of political restrictions to participating in the international exchanges in science. The former young generation of international cardiologists and biochemists should remember the special benefit of listening to his talks for learning his interdisciplinary search methods and constructive, creative thinking, with which he furthered the understanding of heart function at the molecular and cellular levels in health and disease. Albert Wollenberger and his team in Berlin-Buch taught numerous physiologists, biochemists and physicians of Eastern European countries, in particular from academic institutions and clinics from Bratislava, Kiev, Moscow, Prague and Szeged, thereby improving their scientific careers.
Right from the very beginning of his research activities, Albert Wollenberger was passionately interested in improving methodological standards to allow future progress. To this end, he developed an ultrarapid freeze-stop technique that allowed the cryofixation of cardiac tissue (1960). For more than 40 years this cryofixation procedure was an essential step in all the analytical work involving excitable tissue such as the myocardium. This technique (colloquially referred to as the ‘Wollenberger clamp’) is still used routinely in many cardiological laboratories. Although written in German, the publication describing this procedure was referred to as a ‘citation classic’ in the research publication Current Contents (1979) and, to date, it has been cited over 1300 times.
Albert Wollenberger was one of the founders of the International Society of Heart Research (ISHR) and served as its President from 1973 to 1976. Under his leadership, the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology was founded, and he was a member of its editorial board for 19 years. His knowledge and experience in many areas of cardiac research and clinical cardiology also meant that he served on a number of editorial boards in both Germany and abroad. Albert Wollenberger was a member of the German Academy of Natural Sciences LEOPOLDINA, of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Professor Albert Wollenberger died on September 25, 2000 in Berlin. His friends, former students and colleagues, nationally and, in particular, internationally, will preserve his memory as an enthusiastic scientist and self-possessed, committed researcher. He will always be remembered for his responsibility and kindness in science and life.