[msb-alumni] Richard R. Ernst, Nobel Winner Who Paved the Way for M.R.I., Dies at 87 on June 4, 2021
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2021 15:33:47 -0400
BlankRichard R. Ernst, Nobel Winner Who Paved the Way for M.R.I., Dies at 87.
By Emily
Anthes.
His development of advanced analytical techniques formed the basis for M.R.I.
technology
used in hospitals and helped chemists determine the structure of complex
molecules.
Richard R. Ernst, a Swiss chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1991 for his work
refining
nuclear magnetic resonance, or N.M.R., spectroscopy, the powerful method of
chemical
analysis behind M.R.I. technology, died on June 4 in Winterthur, in northern
Switzerland. He
was 87. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), where
Dr. Ernst had
spent almost his entire career, announced the death on its website. No cause
was given.
Dr. Ernst -- whose work and interests spanned chemistry, physics, math, music
and art --
helped develop N.M.R. from a niche, time-intensive technique into a critical
scientific tool
routinely used in local hospitals and undergraduate chemistry labs. As a
chemist, he was
pre-eminent. 'To compare him to Einstein would offend physicists,' said Jeffrey
A. Reimer,
an N.M.R. expert at the University of California, Berkeley. 'But in terms of
his impact in
the discipline, Ernst is foundational. Dr. Ernst was driven and demanding -- of
himself
above all others -- and even as his stature grew, colleagues and former
students said, he
had remarkably little ego. He was quick to give credit to collaborators and
described his
own contributions in modest terms. 'I'm not really what one would imagine to be
a scientist
who wants to understand the world,' he said in a 2001 Nobel interview. He
continued, 'I'm a
toolmaker and not really a scientist in this sense, and I wanted to provide
other people
these capabilities of solving problems. N.M.R. spectroscopy was first developed
in the 1940s
and early '50s by Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell, who shared the 1952
Nobel Prize in
Physics for the achievement. Using this technique, scientists place a substance
in a
magnetic field, which brings the nuclei of its atoms into alignment. They then
bombard it
with radio pulses, which force the nuclei out of alignment. As the nuclei
return to
alignment, the atoms give off unique electromagnetic signals that can be
analyzed to
determine the chemical composition and molecular structure of the material.
When Dr. Ernst
began studying N.M.R. as a graduate student in the late 1950s, the method
required
researchers to scan a substance in a magnet slowly and apply continuous radio
waves. It
suffered, Dr. Ernst wrote in an autobiographical sketch on the Nobel website,
'from a
disappointingly low sensitivity that severely limits its applications. Instead
of slowly
scanning a substance, Dr. Ernst hit it with a short but intense pulse of radio
waves. Then,
with the help of a computer, he applied a complex mathematical operation to
analyze the
signal. This method, known as Fourier Transform N.M.R., or F.T. -N.M.R., was
far more
sensitive, allowing scientists to study more kinds of atoms and molecules,
particularly
those that were in low abundance. 'That was a very big invention, which was
ahead of his
time,' said Matthias Ernst, a physical chemist at ETH Zurich who was a former
student of Dr.
Ernst's (and is not related). This was the 1960s, and the personal computing
era had not yet
begun; instead, Dr. Ernst and his colleagues had to transfer their data from
punch tape to
punch cards and then carry them to a computer center for processing. In the
1970s, Dr. Ernst
developed two-dimensional N.M.R. In this technique, samples are bombarded with
sequences of
radio pulses over time. The resulting signals provide more information about
the sample and
allow scientists to determine the precise composition and structure of large
and complex
biological molecules. 'It was beautiful,' said Dr. Reimer, who was an
undergraduate
chemistry student when Dr. Ernst published his results. 'Richard really pushed
the envelope.
Two-dimensional N.M.R. is the basis of M.R.I., a medical advancement that
allowed doctors to
create detailed images of the body's internal structures. 'He made N.M.R. the
powerful
technique that it is today in chemistry, biochemistry and biology,' Robert
Tycko, a physical
chemist at the National Institutes of Health and the president of the
International Society
of Magnetic Resonance, said in a phone interview. Dr. Ernst was on a
trans-Atlantic flight
when his Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced in October 1991; he learned of
the honor
from the pilot. But in keeping with his characteristic modesty, he was
unsettled to discover
that he was the sole winner of the prize. 'He was very happy for the
recognition,' said Beat
H. Meier, a physical chemist at ETH 'But he also was a little disturbed by the
fact that he
got it alone and that he was singled out when a lot of people have also
contributed. Richard
Robert Ernst was born on Aug. 14, 1933, in Winterthur to Robert Ernst, an
architect, and
Irma Ernst-Brunner. As a child, he developed a passion for music and chemistry.
When he was
13, he found a case of chemicals in the attic of his home and learned that it
had belonged
to an uncle of his. 'I became almost immediately fascinated by the
possibilities of trying
out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to
unbearable
poisoning of the air in our house, frightening my parents,' he wrote in his
Nobel sketch. He
began devouring chemistry books and abandoned plans to become a composer. He
earned his
undergraduate degree in chemistry at ETH Zurich in 1956 and then briefly served
in the Swiss
military before returning to ETH for a doctorate in physical chemistry, which
he earned in
1962. He married Magdalena Kielholz the next year. Survivors include his wife
and their
three children, Anna, Katharina and Hans-Martin. Matthias Ernst, his former
student, said
Dr. Ernst died in a retirement home. In 1963, Dr. Ernst joined the technology
company Varian
Associates in Palo Alto, Calif., as a scientist. It was there that he developed
F.T. -N.M.R.
He returned to ETH in 1968 and taught and conducted research there until his
retirement in
1998. In addition to the Nobel, he received the Wolf Prize for Chemistry, the
Horwitz Prize,
the Marcel Benoist Prize and 17 honorary doctorates. Dr. Ernst was a
self-confessed 'work
addict,' as he put it. 'He had supper with his wife, and then went back to his
desk and
worked late in the night,' said Alexander Wokaun, a retired chemist and
professor emeritus
at ETH who had been one of Dr. Ernst's Ph.D. students. 'But in that total
devotion to
science, I think he showed us what can be achieved. Dr. Ernst gave his students
freedom and
took an interest in the work of young scientists who had not yet made names for
themselves.
'At gatherings of scientists or scientific conferences,' Dr. Tycko said, 'he
would sit in
the front row and take careful notes listening to other people describe their
work, which is
very unusual, actually, for someone of his stature. Dr. Ernst retained his love
of music and
also developed a passion for Tibetan scroll paintings, amassing an enormous
collection of
them with his wife and adorning nearly every wall of their home with them, Dr.
Wokaun said.
He used advanced laboratory techniques to examine the pigments of the paintings
to learn
where and when they had been created. After receiving his Nobel, he traveled
and gave
lectures about the responsibility that he believed scientists had in
contributing to
society. 'He always told me, 'It's not just enough for a scientist to
accumulate knowledge,
just for the sake of it,' Dr. Wokaun said. 'For what good, for what purpose,
are you doing
that?
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