Otto Fritz Meyerhof - Biography

Biography

Meyerhof was born in Hildesheim, the son of wealthy Jewish parents. Because Hildesheim is a smaller city, about half an hour south of Hannover, a number of biographies mistakenly list his birthplace as Hannover. He spent most of his childhood in Berlin, where he started his study of medicine. He continued these studies in Strasbourg and Heidelberg, from which he graduated in 1909, with a work titled "Contributions to the Psychological Theory of Mental Illness". In Heidelberg, he met Hedwig Schallenberg, who later became his wife. They had a daughter, Bettina Meyerhof and two sons, Gottfried (who referred to himself as Geoffrey) and Walter.

In 1912, he moved to the University of Kiel, where he became professor in 1918. In 1922, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, with Archibald Vivian Hill, for his work on muscle metabolism, including glycolysis. In 1929 he became one of the directors of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, a position he held until 1938. Fleeing the Nazi regime, he moved to Paris in 1938. He then moved to the United States in 1940, where he became a guest professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Meyerhof died in Philadelphia at the age of 67.