Otto Meyerhof

The lactic acid cycle in muscle, and mapping how cells break down sugar (1918-1938)

• His Nobel biography credits the finding by Meyerhof and his students that certain phosphate compounds store large amounts of energy with reshaping ideas about muscle contraction and about cell metabolism as a whole.^[2]
• A history published by NobelPrize.org credits his Heidelberg group with identifying over a third of the known enzymes of glycolysis in about eight years; eight other laboratories between them found the remainder.^[6]
• ATP, discovered in his laboratory by Karl Lohmann in 1929 (and independently at Harvard), is now known to supply energy for muscle contraction, nerve signals, membrane transport and the making of proteins and nucleic acids.^[6],[8],[9]
• FDG-PET cancer scans rely on hexokinase, the first enzyme of glycolysis and one Meyerhof first described in 1927, to tag a tracer sugar so it stays trapped in cells; about 2.2 million FDG-PET/CT scans were done in the US in 2019, 90% of them for cancer.^{[15],[16],[19]}
• Four scientists who worked in his laboratory in the 1930s, Fritz Lipmann, Severo Ochoa, George Wald and André Lwoff, later won Nobel Prizes of their own.^[6]

Meyerhof's legacy is mostly knowledge. His lactic acid cycle, the glycolysis pathway his laboratory helped assemble and the ATP discovered there are textbook facts about how cells get energy, and they underpin exercise physiology, metabolism research and much of modern biochemistry. Foundations like these feed countless later advances, so most of their value cannot be honestly counted. We record one narrow, low-confidence ripple claim: FDG-PET cancer scans, which work because hexokinase, an enzyme Meyerhof first described in 1927, traps the tracer inside glucose-hungry cells. We use the same outcome and range as the Otto Warburg profile and credit Meyerhof with only 0.5%, because the tracer chemistry, scanners and clinical methods came from many others. We add no harm claim, since no injury to people has been traced to his research, though the view of lactic acid as a waste product, which drew authority from his and Hill's work, misled sport and medicine for decades. His influence also spread through people: four scientists from his laboratory later won Nobel Prizes.

Fundamental scienceHealth

Each number is the laureate’s credited share of a real-world outcome, cumulative to 2025. The whole outcome, the share of credit, and the reasoning are shown so you can check the arithmetic. Outcomes shared with other laureates are counted once on the impact page.

• Low confidenceRippleModeledHealth

  Cancer patients whose planned care changed after an FDG-PET glucose scan

  40,000–135,000

  people benefited, credited share

  That is 0.5% of 8–27 million people benefited since 1998.

  How this number was built

  Same outcome and range as the Otto Warburg profile: UNSCEAR counts about 40M nuclear medicine scans a year, 17% PET, oncology over 90% of PET in most reporting countries; a ramp-up from 1998 gives 96M-132M PET scans to 2025, 70-85% FDG cancer scans = 67M-112M; at 2.5 (low) or 1.5 (high) scans per patient = 27M-75M patients; the US NOPR registry found plans changed after 36.5% of scans (30% for low) = 8M-27M. Share 0.005: hexokinase, the first enzyme of glycolysis, phosphorylates FDG and the product is trapped. Meyerhof first described hexokinase in 1927, but von Euler and Adler also characterized it (1935), and Sokoloff's method, FDG chemistry, PET scanners, trials and Warburg's tumour finding were each essential. Set below de Hevesy's more direct tracer principle. Shares: Warburg 0.03, de Hevesy 0.01, Meyerhof 0.005. Credited: about 40,000-135,000.^{[15],[16],[17],[18],[19]}

  Sources: Frontiers; Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging; PubMed (US National Library of Medicine); United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation; Theranostics (via PubMed Central)

• Minor

  The lactic acid theory of contraction was wrong

  For about a decade the Hill-Meyerhof theory held that forming lactic acid directly drives muscle contraction. In 1930 Einar Lundsgaard found that poisoned muscles contract without making lactic acid. Meyerhof welcomed him to Heidelberg to test it, abandoned the theory by 1931, and his lab went on to show that ATP breakdown is the direct energy source.^[6],[8]

• Minor

  A long-lived myth of lactic acid as waste

  For most of the 20th century, Meyerhof's and Hill's work was taken to show that lactate is a useless by-product behind tired, cramping and sore muscles. George Brooks argues that Meyerhof's frog preparations, with no blood flow or oxygen supply, could not represent the living body. Lactate is now seen as a key fuel and signalling molecule.^[4],[14]

• —

  Discrimination

  His Kiel research, done as an assistant with no staff and little space, made him world-famous, yet the faculty passed him over for its new chair of physiological chemistry; Germany's national biography attributes this to antisemitism. A history published by NobelPrize.org adds resentment of his wartime pacifism and says he was denied promotion even after his Nobel Prize.^[6],[9]

• 1933

  Persecution

  From June 1933 the local Nazi party agitated for his removal from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, objecting that a Jewish scientist might become its administrative director. He was kept out of that rotating post, and his standing grew precarious. Germany's Jews then numbered about 505,000, under 0.75% of the population.^[7],[12]

• 1938

  Exile

  With help from his former student Alexander von Muralt, he and his wife crossed into Switzerland and went on to Paris, where David Nachmansohn had arranged a research post. He told no colleagues and had to leave behind his scientific data and possessions.^[6],[7],[9]

• 1940

  War

  When Germany invaded France, the family fled south. Their son Walter was detained at Chambaran and then Le Cheylard until August 1940, and escaped with a forged demobilization paper. Meyerhof was not on the Emergency Rescue Committee's list, but Varian Fry helped him leave anyway.^{[10],[13],[20]}

• 1940

  Exile

  The Meyerhofs crossed the Pyrenees and Spain to Lisbon and sailed for the United States, where the University of Pennsylvania and the Rockefeller Foundation created a research professorship for him. The family lost almost all its possessions, including his library.^{[2],[6],[8],[9],[13]}

Both parents came from Jewish merchant families: his father Felix was the son of a merchant from Hildesheim, and his mother Bettina May came from a Hamburg merchant family. Germany's national biography lists him as Jewish, and the Hildesheim Meyerhofs were related to the families of fellow biochemists Hans Krebs and Carl Neuberg. In 1914 he married the painter Hedwig Schallenberg. Their three children were raised Lutheran; a memorial for their son Walter says this was to shield them from antisemitism. Biographies describe a life devoted to science, philosophy, art and poetry, and mention no religious practice. The Nazis still persecuted him as Jewish, and he fled Germany in 1938.^{[2],[6],[7],[9],[10],[11]}

1. April 12, 1884

   Born in Hanover, Germany, to Felix Meyerhof, a merchant, and Bettina May; the family moves to Berlin in 1888.^[1],[2],[9]

2. 1909

   Graduates in medicine at Heidelberg with a thesis on psychiatry, then joins Ludolf von Krehl's clinic, where Otto Warburg steers him toward cell chemistry.^[2],[8]

3. 1912

   Moves to the University of Kiel's Institute of Physiology, qualifying as a lecturer in physiology in 1913.^[2],[9]

4. 1914

   Marries the painter Hedwig Schallenberg; they have three children, Gottfried, Bettina and Walter.^[2],[9],[10]

5. 1918

   Becomes assistant professor at Kiel and begins the frog muscle studies linking oxygen use to lactic acid.^[2],[6],[9]

6. October 25, 1923

   Awarded half of the reserved 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with A.V. Hill; he is 39.^{[1],[4],[5],[8]}

7. 1924

   After Otto Warburg lobbies for him, joins the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem as head of a division.^[2],[6],[8]

8. 1925

   Extracts from muscle the enzyme system that breaks glycogen down to lactic acid, opening the way to mapping glycolysis.^[2],[8]

9. 1929

   His assistant Karl Lohmann reports the discovery of ATP; Meyerhof moves to Heidelberg to head the Physiology Institute of the new Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research.^[2],[6],[9]

10. June 1933

    The local Nazi party begins agitating for his removal from the Heidelberg institute because he is Jewish.^[7]

11. 1938

    Flees Nazi Germany via Switzerland to Paris, becoming director of research at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique.^[2],[7],[9]

12. 1940

    Flees France after the German invasion, crossing the Pyrenees to Spain and Lisbon, and becomes a research professor at the University of Pennsylvania.^[2],[6],[10]

13. 1949

    Elected to the US National Academy of Sciences.^[8]

14. October 6, 1951

    Dies of a heart attack in Philadelphia, aged 67, after some 400 scientific publications.^[1],[2],[8]

1. 1.Otto Meyerhof - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
2. 2.Otto Meyerhof - Biographical (from Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941) · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach), 1965
3. 3.Energy conversions in muscle (Nobel Lecture, 12 December 1923) · Nobel Foundation, 1923
4. 4.Award ceremony speech, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1922 (Professor J.E. Johansson) · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach), 1923
5. 5.The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1922 - Summary · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
6. 6.Otto Meyerhof and the Physiology Institute: the Birth of Modern Biochemistry · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
7. 7.Personal and National Tragedy Undermine Krehl's Dream · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
8. 8.Otto Meyerhof, 1884-1951: A Biographical Memoir (David Nachmansohn, Severo Ochoa and Fritz A. Lipmann) · National Academy of Sciences, 1960
9. 9.Meyerhof, Otto (by Michael Engel), Neue Deutsche Biographie 17, 1994 · Deutsche Biographie (Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften), 1994
10. 10.Studio portrait of Nobel laureate, Otto Meyerhof (photo record with Meyerhof family biography) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
11. 11.Walter E. Meyerhof memorial · Palo Alto Online
12. 12.Germany: Jewish Population in 1933 · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
13. 13.German city honors Jews who fled (Lauren Bottner) · Jewish Journal, 2011
14. 14.The tortuous path of lactate shuttle discovery: From cinders and boards to the lab and ICU (George A. Brooks), Journal of Sport and Health Science 9(5) · Journal of Sport and Health Science (via PubMed Central), 2020
15. 15.Moonlighting Proteins: The Case of the Hexokinases (Rodríguez-Saavedra et al.), Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences 8 · Frontiers, 2021
16. 16.Gallagher's Principle of Metabolic Trapping (Steven M. Larson), Journal of Nuclear Medicine 61 Suppl 2 · Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, 2020
17. 17.Impact of PET/CT and PET alone on expected management of patients with cancer: initial results from the National Oncologic PET Registry (Hillner et al.), J Clin Oncol 26(13) · PubMed (US National Library of Medicine), 2008
18. 18.UNSCEAR 2020/2021 Report, Annex A: Evaluation of medical exposure to ionizing radiation · United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, 2022
19. 19.FDG uptake in cancer: a continuing debate (Peppicelli et al.), Theranostics 10(7) · Theranostics (via PubMed Central), 2020
20. 20.Rescuing the Nazis' "most wanted" (George Rupp) · International Rescue Committee, 2008