Otto Kandler, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Otto Kandler

German botanist

Date of Birth: 23-Oct-1920

Place of Birth: Deggendorf, Bavaria, Germany

Date of Death: 29-Aug-2017

Profession: botanist, microbiologist

Nationality: Germany

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Otto Kandler (23 October 1920 in Deggendorf - 29 August 2017 in Munich, Bavaria) was a German botanist and microbiologist.
Until his retirement in 1986 he was professor of botany at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. His most important research topics were photosynthesis, plant carbohydrate metabolism, analysis of the structure of bacterial cell walls (murein/peptidoglycan), the systematics of Lactobacillus, and the chemotaxonomy of plants and microorganisms. He presented the first experimental evidence for the existence of photophosphorylation in vivo.
His discovery of the basic differences between the cell walls of bacteria and archaea (up to 1990 called "archaebacteria") convinced him that archaea represent an autonomous group of organisms distinct from bacteria.
This was the basis for his cooperation with Carl Woese and made him the founder of research on the Archaea in Germany.
In 1990, together with Woese, he proposed the three domains of life: Bacteria, Archaea, Eucarya.