Franz Hillenkamp was born in 1936 in
Essen, Germany. He attended high school in
Lünen, graduating in 1955. He received a M.S. degree in electrical engineering from
Purdue University in 1961. He received a Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) from the
Technische Universität München in 1966 with a thesis entitled “An Absolutely Calibrated Calorimeter for the Measurement of Pulsed Laser Radiation.”
Academic career
Hillenkamp was a professor at
Goethe University Frankfurt in Frankfurt from 1982 to 1986. In 1986, he became a professor on the Medical Faculty of the
University of Münster where he remained until his retirement in 2001.
Laser microprobe
In 1973, Hillenkamp developed a high performance
laser microprobe mass spectrometer with a spatial resolution of 0.5 μm and sub-
attogram limit of detection for
lithium atoms.[6] This instrument was commercialized as the LAMMA 500[7] and was one of the first laser desorption mass spectrometers to be used for
mass spectrometry imaging of tissue.[5] The later LAMMA 1000 was also based on a Hillenkamp design.[8]
MALDI
In 1985, Hillenkamp and his colleague
Michael Karas used a LAMMA 1000 mass spectrometer to demonstrate the technique of
matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI).[9] MALDI is an
ionization method used in
mass spectrometry, allowing the analysis of large
biopolymers. Although Karas and Hillenkamp were the first to discover MALDI, Japanese engineer
Koichi Tanaka was the first to use a similar method in 1988 to ionize proteins[10] and shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for that work.[11] Karas and Hillenkamp reported MALDI of proteins a few months later.[12] The MALDI method of Karas and Hillenkamp subsequently became the much more widely used method.[13]
Awards
In 1997, Hillenkamp and Karas were awarded the
American Society for Mass Spectrometry Distinguished Contribution in Mass Spectrometry award for their discovery of MALDI.[14] Hillenkamp and Karas received the Karl Heinz Beckurts Award, Germany's most important award for outstanding promotion of the partnership between science and industry, in 2003.[15][16] Hillenkamp received the Thomson Medal from the
International Mass Spectrometry Foundation in 2003.[17]
SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics created a postdoctoral fellowship in honor of Franz Hillenkamp. The SPIE-Franz Hillenkamp Postdoctoral Fellowship in Problem-Driven Biomedical Optics and Analytics offers an annual grant of US $75,000. This fellowship aims to facilitate the translation of cutting-edge biomedical optics and biophotonics technologies into practical applications within clinical settings, ultimately contributing to advancements in human healthcare.
^Denoyer, Eric.; Van Grieken, Rene.; Adams, Fred.; Natusch, David F. S. (1982). "Laser microprobe mass spectrometry. 1. Basic principles and performance characteristics". Analytical Chemistry. 54 (1): 26–41.
doi:
10.1021/ac00238a001.
ISSN0003-2700.
^Vogt, H.; Heinen, H. J.; Meier, S.; Wechsung, R. (1981). "LAMMA 500 principle and technical description of the instrument". Fresenius' Zeitschrift für Analytische Chemie. 308 (3): 195–200.
doi:
10.1007/BF00479623.
ISSN0016-1152.
S2CID92151249.
^Feigl, P.; Schueler, B.; Hillenkamp, F. (1983). "LAMMA 1000, a new instrument for bulk microprobe mass analysis by pulsed laser irradiation". International Journal of Mass Spectrometry and Ion Physics. 47: 15–18.
Bibcode:
1983IJMSI..47...15F.
doi:
10.1016/0020-7381(83)87125-3.
ISSN0020-7381.
^Karas, M.; Bachmann, D.; Hillenkamp, F. (1985). "Influence of the Wavelength in High-Irradiance Ultraviolet Laser Desorption Mass Spectrometry of Organic Molecules". Anal. Chem.57 (14): 2935–9.
doi:
10.1021/ac00291a042.