Klaus Mosbach

Klaus Hermann Mosbach (26 November 1932 – 22 January 2024) was a Swedish applied biochemist based at Lund University.

Klaus Mosbach went to school in Leipzig Germany and Lund, Sweden, In 1952 he moved to London, where he took Cambridge and interpreter exams.

After working in a pharmaceutical company, Ferrosan in Malmö, Sweden, he began his university studies at Lund University 1953.

In 1956 he took his master's degree in chemistry and biology and subsequently in 1960 his Ph.D. in biochemistry with a thesis on "the biosynthesis of aromatic compounds in fungi and lichens".

He was then awarded the Waksman-Merck post-doctoral fellowship and stayed for 1.5 years at the Institute of Microbiology, Rutgers University, N.J., USA... In 1962 he developed, jointly with Dr. Schaffner in the Philippines, a pasteurization process against Salmonella infections in coconuts, which subsequently was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is presently used.

After returning to Sweden, he continued his studies on secondary metabolism.

He received his second Ph.D. (corresponding to associate professorship or "Habilitation") from the University of Lund in 1964.

Until 1970 he was associate professor there, and from 1970 onwards he has been full professor and head of the Department of Pure and Applied Biochemistry, which he founded, at Lund Institute of Technology.

He founded the Center for Molecular Imprinting in Lund, Sweden and was co-founder of the Institute of biotechnology at ETH Zurich Switzerland 1982.

He also co-founded the Department of biotechnology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, Switzerland, in 1982.

Professor Mosbach had leaves to take advantage of the following positions

During these stays he collaborated with Nobel Prize winners Lynen, Waksman as well as with Professors Estabrook and Srere, Katchalski-Katzir and Wilchek, Fukui, Chibata, Suzuki, Rees and Creighton respectively.

Klaus Mosbach had the pleasure of essentially wholly supervising more than sixty Ph.D.’s over the years... A number of highly recognized scientists emerged from this pool, including the following professors C. Borrebaeck (in part), B.Sellergren (who is now a professor in Germany).

P. Brodelius, Leif Bulow, B. Danielsson, B. Hahn-Hägerdahl (in part), A.C. Koch.

Schmidt, P.O. Larsson, C. F. Mandenius, B. Mattiasson, M.O. Månsson, I.A. Nicholls (starting as post doc), R. Ohlsson (in part), Lei Ye and S. Olsson working all in Sweden.

To this a number of Professors working in other countries outside Sweden including, L.Fischer, K. Haupt, C.Lowe, H.Zhang, Deepak Chandrasekaran.

Mosbach collaborated with numerous companies over the years, including Biogen and later Hybritech, Eli Lilly, Igen, Hofman la Roche and was involved in the formation of start-up companies by himself likewise former students of him have been successful in starting up companies like B.Ekberg, N.Siegbahn, Kurt Nilsson, Kjell Nilsson, Dariao Kriz.

He was a great visionary who gave shape to the modern era of Molecular imprinting for which he was awarded the plaque at the international meeting of molecular imprinting in 2010 in New Orleans, United States.

Klaus Mosbach was born in Leipzig, Germany.

Family status: Married to May E., three daughters (Petra, Katja, Vanja).