Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt
| Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
|
| Born |
June 2, 1885 Harburg upon Elbe |
| Died |
December 30, 1964 (aged 79) Munich |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | Doctor |
| Known for | Research of brain diseases |
Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt (June 2, 1885 – December 30, 1964) was a German neuropathologist, who first described the Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. He was born in Harburg upon Elbe and died in Munich.
Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt was born into a medical family in Harburg, which was incorporated into Hamburg in 1937. In 1903, at the age of 18, he was drafted into the German army and spent his service stationed in Kiel. Afterwards, he attended the School of Medicine of the Universities of University of Jena and , receiving his doctorate at the latter in 1909. Part of his practical training was undertaken at St. Georg – Hospital in Hamburg. After qualification he sought adventure as a ship's surgeon, voyaging the Pacific Ocean, taking the opportunity to study local crafts, linguistics, and tropical plants.
After returning to Germany, Creutzfeldt worked at the Neurological Institute in Frankfurt am Main, at the psychiatric-neurological clinics in Breslau, Kiel and Berlin, and at the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie in Munich. He was habilitated at Kiel in 1920, and in 1925 became Extraordinarius of psychiatry and neurology. In 1938 he was appointed professor and director of the university psychiatric and neurological division in Kiel. He helped to recognise a neurodegenerative disease, with Alfons Maria Jakob, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in which the brain tissue develops holes and takes on a sponge-like texture. It is now known it is due to a type of infectious protein called a prion. Prions are misfolded proteins which replicate by converting their properly folded counterparts.
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